


Segador y Soldado: Highway 1

by clickclickBANG



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Sex, Beaches, Blow Jobs, California, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Hiking, Humor, I mean, Light Bondage, M/M, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Reaper76 - Freeform, Road Trips, Smut, Summer, Summer Vacation, Vacation, god what did I even do for tags for the last ones, it's really Plot with Porn, reaper76 summer event, uh it's super belated but
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2018-12-11 00:13:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 39,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11702763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickclickBANG/pseuds/clickclickBANG
Summary: [What do you do together in the cracks between the pieces of peace?]For five years, they were defined by the war they had to fight - and destroy.  For a little under a year after, they were defined by the missions in the human aftermath of the war they were made to wage.Now, in the spaces between war and destruction and peace and prosperity, they finally have time to relax and be themselves.Not "Commander Reyes" and "Captain Morrison," but "Gabriel" and "Jack."[If they aren't soldiers, what are they?]They get to see parts of the world they saved, on the winding highway along the edges of the world.  Cities, mountains, beaches, forests, coasts - crumbling into the sea, sliding into star-embedded nights and sunset-drenched horizons.They fought together, they warred together, they survived together, they loved together, they stayed together.Now they have to learn to relax together....And also learn to enjoy "the cruise" (and not bicker about "the drive") together.You ever sit in a car with someone for hours on end?...Sometimes, it feels like the war was one of the simpler parts of their lives.[Was it worth it?]





	1. Los Angeles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Los Angeles]
> 
> After a couple of weeks in Indiana, Jack flies out to meet Gabriel in LA. Los Angeles (and Gabriel) continue to be about as underwhelming and overwhelming as Jack expects (and he loves) - Gabriel takes Jack to a standard Californian lunch, the LA Natural History Museum for a surprise exhibit, and Griffith Observatory to see the sea of streetlamp stars.
> 
> The day ends with some... _creative_ activities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH BOY
> 
> So I'm like...a month late.
> 
> Whoops.
> 
> So this is an extremely belated Reaper76 Summer Event fic - if it isn't incredibly obvious, I wrote this as a massive love letter to California. Okay, _yes_ , California is kinda the _last_ place to need a rabbly, fluffy fic written about it, but Gabriel (and Jack) give me such a fun, ridiculous outlet to express my dumb, frustrating, kinda hopeless love for my state - some of the best and worst parts of it. Overwatch kinda gives me some room to flex my imagination muscles - envisioning what the most populated and popular state in the U.S. looks like after a massive robot war is something I found really intriguing to play around with. At the same time, I really loved the idea of exploring "the characters of who Gabriel and Jack will become" after they've finally found the peace they've fought so hard for. 
> 
> And yeah.
> 
> It's been a long time
> 
> But have another explicit smut fic for your enjoyment.
> 
> \---
> 
> Song is "Adrenaline" by Matt Nathanson ([Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_WUQyAzayc))

_I'd never fall in love with someone else again_

_If I could only taste your lips and this adrenaline_

_I'd never leave here, never leave your bed_

 

_I forgot how good this could feel_

_Close my eyes, holding the steering wheel_

_Spilling my confessions, midnight on the 405_

 

_We really shouldn't be left alone_

_The way we get into each other's bones, yeah_

_'Cause you've got your life now and I've got mine_

 

_Take me home - I'm dying_

 

\---------

**Soldado: LAX**

Saturday, July 6, 2052: 1:43 p.m. - LAX Cell phone waiting lot, Los Angeles, California

 

_Where is he?_

Jack’s eyes scan over the surprisingly sparse and mostly empty waiting lot, his gaze drifting over the mix of “old school” wheeled cars and the “new” hover autos, picking out the people standing around, or the drivers texting in their seats.  The sun is bright and almost blinding, causing him to shift the strap of his duffel bag on his shoulder as he raises his hand to block out some of the white light.  The sky above him is perfectly blue, cut only by the entrails of “old school” passenger airplane jets and the small streaks of light of the “new” transport zip ships (their companies bearing slogans like “Fly right out of a Crisis,” “We’ll zip you there faster than ever,” and “Faster.  Better.”).  Hell, the transport ship he’d just taken had labeled every in-flight advertisement with “Jet to the future,” or some ridiculous phrase.  Jack’d had to remind himself that not everyone had been on a transport ship before.

Hell, technically like...twenty people at best had been on an Overwatch transport ship.

Jack peers a little harder at a car with a particularly dark-tinted driver window, squinting to try and assess the shadowy shape of the driver when -

“Right here, Jack!”

An arm loops around his shoulders and suddenly there’s an excessive amount of dead weight hanging off Jack’s right side, causing him to buckle and shake slightly under the sheer pressure and he wheezes and grunts, shifting to put more support in his right leg.  Jack gives a knowing, raised eyebrow look to his right as Gabriel’s smug, charming grin slides into view, his deep, rich face lit with the brightness of the sun and the cheer of LA’s summer weather.

“Always rushing in, huh, Juan?” Gabriel chuckles, his dark, smoke-sunshine eyes glittering with a charismatic mischief.  Jack feels Gabriel’s left hand rub affectionately through his hair, and before he knows it, he’s beaming back at his partner, even as Gabriel snorts, “You walked right past the car.”

“Give me a break, Gabe,” Jack half-grumbles, half-grins, turning himself to face Gabriel better.  Jack reflects his smile back, even as he sighs, “It was a long flight.”

“Oh boohoo, you spent two and a half hours in the air on a brand new jet ship,” Gabriel snorts, leaning in to wrap his other arm around Jack’s shoulders.  Jack falls into the hug easily, breathing a soft sigh of relief to finally - _finally_ \- feel Gabriel’s broad chest against his, Gabriel’s strong, steady arms around his shoulders, the soft, ticklish feeling of Gabriel’s beard against his cheek.  Jack’s arms are around him in a fraction of a second, embracing him fiercely as he breathes in the warmth of Gabriel’s sunshine.

Has it really only been two weeks?

It’s been the longest period of time they’ve been apart since…

Well, god damn.

Since their last year at West Point.

Seven years.

Two years in SEP, four years of Overwatch, one year since the Crisis ended and transitional Overwatch began - the last time they had been apart from each other had been Winter Break of Cow Year at West Point.  It was the first time they’d been given true, official block leave since SEP had begun -

And here they are

Already back in each other’s arms.

Jack buries his face against Gabriel’s left shoulder, murmuring softly against Gabriel’s neck, “Missed you, Gabi.  Is that too sappy to say?”

“It’s pretty damn sappy, Jack,” Gabriel hums back, but Jack feel Gabriel’s smile pressed against his left cheek as Gabriel kisses him just below the corner of his eye.  Gabriel chuckles, the rumble of the laugh vibrating through Jack’s chest and deep, deep into his heart as his partner laughs, “But I guess that makes me a sap too, because I missed you too.”

“Glad to know we can be sappy together,” Jack grins, pulling back slightly to tilt his smirk at Gabriel.  Gabriel’s expression is a mix of everything Jack loves about him - eyebrows furrowed slightly, a scowl cut with a smile, gaze warm like silk smoke, laughter tender like that cotton beanie he always wears.  There’s only a beat where they assess each other, because even though it’s only been two weeks since they last saw each other, it somehow feels like it’s really been years, and then -

Jack leans in to share their smiles together.

Their kiss is warm, the sweetness of honey cut with the sharpness of longing, melting them down into a moment that spans the intensity of lifetimes, a whisper and a sigh, a breath of life and love with the faintest traces of a promised forever.  Gabriel’s fingers card through Jack’s hair, his nails scratching gently across his scalp, and Jack’s grip tightens in Gabriel’s shirt as he murmurs against Gabriel’s heated lips, “I really did miss you.”

“I know, Jack,” Gabriel chuckles back, but there’s a quiet ache to his words that - after years and promised lifetimes - Jack can _feel_ rather than hear.  Gabriel tilts his head away, muttering, “I meant what I said, you know -”

HONK.

They jump slightly as a car beeps at them, jolting to look to at it.  The driver gestures emphatically at them, getting Jack to scowl as he grumbles, “We’re having a moment here, asshole -”

“Yeah, well, let’s have a moment somewhere else,” Gabriel snorts, tugging at the strap of Jack’s duffel.  Jack frowns slightly, but relents, letting Gabriel shoulder the bag instead.  His partner grins, turning towards the row of cars as he beams, “C’mon, you said you were hungry, right?  How was the flight?”

“Well, you’re the one who described it best - not much to add to ‘two and half hours in the air on a brand new jet ship,’” Jack sighs, following after him as Gabriel leads him to -

“Oh damn,” Jack whistles low as they step up the side of a shiny, slick hover car, the propulsion wheels humming slightly with the breath of the hover technology.  Gabriel gives him a massive shit-eating grin as he chucks Jack’s bag in the back seat, saying smugly, “Nice, right?”

“How in the hell did you get one of these?” Jack asks, opening up the passenger door.  He peers inside, assessing the smooth leather and wood interior, the holo-projector interface, the crisp windows.  Gabriel’s deep, almost vicious smirk appears as he opens the driver’s side door, and he chuckles as he slides in behind the wheel, “Perks of being the Strike-Commander.”

“This is _so_ not fair,” Jack half-grumbles, half-laughs as he plops himself in the passenger seat, feeling the strange, not-actually-on-the-road vibrations through the base.  He huffs as he draws the seatbelt over his shoulder, “I’m the one who actually kept the Strike-Commander alive - where’s my new hover car?”

“Didn’t know you were keeping me alive just for the rewards,” Gabriel mutters dryly as he flicks the engine on.  The fusion core hums to life, and the car rises another few inches as the guitar solo of “Back in Black” kicks on about two smidges of volume too loud.  Gabriel hits a few buttons on the steering wheel, dropping the noise levels before he eases the car forward into the parking loop.  Jack taps the holo-projected interface on the dash, flicking through the weather, the GPS, the radio, the clock as he grins, “I wasn’t intentionally keeping you alive just for the rewards, but they certainly don’t hurt.”

“After all these years, you finally show your true colors,” Gabriel grins, stopping the car at the edge of the parking lot as they wait for the right lane of Sepulveda Northbound to clear up.  Jack leans the seat back slightly, sighing comfortably as he murmurs, “This car is way too nice for either of us.”

“No shit - you remember my first car?” Gabriel chuckles, turning them right onto the street, slotting them in between some older, wheeled cars.  Jack snorts -

( _July 6, 2043: 2:47 p.m. - LAX Cell phone waiting lot, Los Angeles, California_ )

_“You don’t need to look so happy to see me.”_

_Gabriel’s grin is vibrant and smug as the soon-to-be twenty-year-old half-leans, half-sits on the hood of a beat-up silver sedan.  Eighteen-year-old Jack gives him a scowling, exhausted smirk as he steps up to him, grumbling, “I just spent an hour and a half on a shuttle and almost five hours on a plane, Gabi - cut me some slack if I’m a little tired.”_

_“Boy, you’re gonna die when we gotta fly back to New York,” Gabriel teases him, easing himself up off the car, “That’s like a six hour flight.  Plus the bus to West Point.”_

_“Yeah, don’t remind me,” Jack grumbles, leaning forward to pull Gabriel into a tight hug.  Gabriel whumps him on the back once-twice, laughing brightly, “Welcome to the Best Coast - you’re not in Kansas anymore.”_

_“I’m from Indiana, but sure, let’s give the country boy a hard time,” Jack retorts, but he’s grinning too - already feels breezier and easier being out here, under the drier heat of southern California over the denser humidity of southern Indiana.  He’d been mesmerized by the sheer sprawl of the city as the plane had circled in around the airport, awed by the hard, jagged mountains on the horizon and the endless blue glow in the other direction, and though he’d been exhausted from the drag of sitting in a crammed, packed airbus for hours and hours, the excitement of going somewhere new had bloomed in him all over again during the descent -_

_“Throw your bag anywhere,” Gabriel says, walking around to crack open the driver’s door.  Jack blinks a few times at the rather boring, rather mundane, rather old sedan, before moving forward and opening up the door to the back seat.  He slides his duffel in, returning to the passenger door.  As he drops himself onto the cloth-covered seat, he mutters, “This is like...the_ last _car I expected you to have.”_

_“What, you weren’t expecting me to have a 2033 dad car?” Gabriel asks coyly, giving him a wild grin as he flicks the engine on.  The gas rumbles to life before switching over to the electric motor.  The smart display flickers aglow and the guitar solo of “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” blasts on at like three smidges of volume too loud.  Gabriel taps something on the smart display, turning it down slightly as Jack snorts, “You have the right kind of music for this car, that’s for sure.”_

_“Hey, don’t rip on More Cowbell,” Gabriel chides him, pulling the car forward.  The older cadet just shakes his head disappointedly as he titters, “Not even left the parking lot, and you’ve already insulted my car and my music -”_

_“Gabe, your music is like sixty years old,” Jack chuckles, settling himself more comfortably into the seat.  The younger cadet sighs contentedly, “You know who listens to this stuff?  My dad.  And_ his _dad.”_

_“You kids these days have no appreciation for the_ classics _,” Gabriel grumbles as they roll to the edge of a large, multilane street.  Gabriel’s light-dark eyes watch the traffic like a hawk, even as Jack jokes, “Holy shit, that’s_ exactly _what they say -”_

“You mean that Model T you claimed got decent gas mileage for a ten-year-old hybrid?” Jack snorts as they cruise past the turn-off for northbound Highway 1.  Gabriel threads the car into the long left turn lane, coming to a slow stop in the line at the light, saying to Jack with mock indignation, “Hey, that car was _awesome_ , okay?  It was everything my sixteen-year-old self ever wanted.”

“Oh wow, sixteen-year-old Gabe reached for the stars, huh?” Jack teases him coyly, reaching out his left hand as he twists a crooked grin towards his partner.  Gabriel rolls his eyes but takes his hand anyways, grumbling, “Like yours was any better.  What was it - a shoddy pick up truck?”

“Oh no,” Jack chuckles, entwining his fingers between Gabriel’s and squeezing lightly.  He hums with a low, contented sigh, “First thing I ever learned to drive was the ATV -”

“Yo, _what_ ,” Gabriel half-asks, half-demands, looking at Jack with shock on his face and awe in his eyes.  Jack gives him a deep, smug shit-eating grin, laughing, “Jealous?”

“Fucking _insanely_ ,” Gabriel retorts as the light turns green.  He unwinds his right hand from Jack’s, slowly moving the car forward as they slide through the intersection.  Gabriel shakes his head, muttering, “What is _with_ rural families and vehicles?”

“Oh boy, can’t wait to hear you explain this one,” Jack says with a coy chortle.  Gabriel half-shrugs, but his hands never leave the wheel as he states, “Like, why do you guys have like...four trucks, two cars - all of them ten years or older - some sort of beat up Jeep, like...three tractors, an ATV, a golf cart, and your grandfather’s Buick that is somehow both falling apart and in perfect condition?”

“Alright, so to correct you,” Jack grins as Gabriel laughs brightly, the sound like perfect sunshine to Jack’s heart.  Jack smirks back, counting off on his fingers, “We had one pick up and one Blazer -”

“They’re both _trucks_ ,” Gabriel snorts with some derision, but Jack prattles on, “One Jeep, two tractors - the big John Deere and the little Kubota - the Honda ATV, the golf cart, and my grandpa’s ‘Buick’ was actually his old Mustang.”

“You were a family of _four_ only like twenty miles outside South Bloomington,” Gabriel groans, shifting them into another left lane.  He shakes his head again, muttering in disbelief, “There is _no need_ for one nuclear family to have _that many_ vehicles.”

“Not true,” Jack teases him, “Each one had a purpose.  The tractors were obviously for the fields, the ATV was just to get around and have fun on the back roads, the trucks were just perfectly multipurpose, the Jeep was for my mom to get to work in the city and then be able to roll out wherever she wanted to go -”

“Yeah, and the golf cart?” Gabriel asks as if he caught Jack in a clever trap, but his playful tone gives him away.  Jack just shrugs slightly, smirking, “Well, that one was for _golf_ , obviously -”

“God dammit,” Gabriel grins, looping them around toward the south again, and Jack half-taunts, half-brags, “And I got to take the Mustang to prom.”

“God, my sixteen-year-old self is so jealous and hates you right now,” Gabriel mutters, which only gets Jack to smirk viciously, his eyes flashing as they pull into the packed parking lot, teasing brashly, “Sixteen-year-old Gabe is gonna hate me even worse for this -”

“Dammit, Jack, sixteen-year-old Gabe can only take so much,” Gabriel says, but Jack just laughs:

“I took the motorcycle to Senior Ball.”

“Yup, you’re right - sixteen-year-old Gabriel hates everything about sixteen-year-old Jack,” Gabriel snorts as they take their place in the drive-through lane.  Jack glances up at the big red and yellow sign, sighing dramatically, “Here?  Really?”

“You texted me that you were hungry!” Gabriel replies in mock rage, before gesturing to the red and white building the longass line of cars is looping around, “And In-N-Out is basically required when you land at LAX.”

“...I texted you that I was hungry so we could like, get real food,” Jack grumbles a little, slumping his face into his right hand, perching his elbow on the armrest of the door.  He sighs with exaggerated drama, “Not more of these Socal Five Guys burgers.”

“Okay, listen, I’m more than prepared to swing you back to the Departures terminal if you keep this up,” Gabriel mocks him as they inch forward.  Jack just rolls his eyes but grins smugly, “They’re not even _that good_ -”

“I have _no qualms_ about kicking you out of my brand new hovercar, Mr. Strike-Captain,” Gabriel smirks back, but even as he says that, his right hand finds Jack’s left on the center console, interlocking their fingers again.

“...You remember the first time you brought me here?” Jack asks -

_(Five minutes after leaving the LAX Cell phone waiting lot)_

_Gabriel grins at him as he pulls the car into the long line snaking through the parking lot.  Jack squints at the red and white building they’re looping around, before muttering hoarsely, “Oh god -”_

_“Listen,” Gabriel retorts, pointing a finger at his best friend, “We gotta do the obligatory In-N-Out run.”_

_“So I finally get to see if these dumb burgers live up to the hype of you missing them all of last year?” Jack teases back, and Gabriel immediately jumps to the defense, saying with that rough, jagged-edged brightness, “Look - they’re just_ that _good, okay?”_

_“This is the part of the mockumentary where the camera zooms in on my skeptical face,” Jack snorts dryly, which gets Gabriel to laugh vibrantly against the steering wheel -_

“...Yeah, it did _not_ live up to the hype,” Jack says, a bragging tone undercutting his voice.  The car slides forward as the line crawls around the drive through, and Gabriel gives him a pouting scowl before he beams viciously, “Alright, so riddle me this, Sherlock - why was the first thing you texted me, ‘I’m hungry, I need a burger and fries?’”

The deadass silence is all the answer Jack can give -

“I GOT YOUR NUMBER, SON,” Gabriel wheezes at him as Jack protests loudly, “IT’S GOOD TRIP FOOD -”

“That’s all it is, Jack!” Gabriel howls, throwing his head back as he laughs vividly, “It’s a delicious, cheapass burger that’s good for trips!  I swear they put some special stuff in it that makes it especially addictive after long flights and roadtrips -”

“Probably straight cocaine,” Jack jokes, which somehow gets Gabriel to say with 100% dead, dry seriousness, “It’s _not_ cocaine -”

“I swear, it’s like the law that all y’all out here need to defend this fast food company to the death,” Jack drawls.  Gabriel grins brightly as he pulls them up to the window, chuckling, “It’s in our blood or something, hang on -”

He rolls the window down as the employee leans out the order slot, saying cheerfully, “Hello, welcome to In-N-Out, what can I get for you -”

“Hey, yeah, uh, do you use cocaine in your burgers?” Gabriel asks her with a deadpan expression, causing Jack to bury his head in his right hand as he _sobs_ with laughter, “Gabe, _no_ , don’t bother her -”

“Uh...no,” the employee says, with a touch of confusion and uncertainty in her tone, and Gabriel sighs heavily with mock relief, saying, “Oh thank god - you heard her, Jack, it’s not cocaine -”

“Gabriel Santiago Reyes, _please_ -” Jack starts to laugh-groan, but Gabriel just asks with a dark, broad, mischievous grin, “What do you want, Juan?”

“Whatever, just get me whatever,” Jack coughs, and Gabriel turns back towards the employee, saying with smug confidence, “He’ll have a three-by-three, a side of fries, and an extra large strawberry shake.”

“Uh...okay, a three-by-three, a side of fries, and an extra large strawberry shake,” she repeats back to him, voice still tinged with that uncertainty.  Gabriel nods, adding, “And I’ll take another three-by-three, no onions, fries, and an extra large Neapolitan shake.”

“One three-by-three - no onions - fries, and an extra large Neapolitan shake,” she returns to him, and Gabriel grins, saying, “Yup, I’d go for animal fries, but I gotta drive and this is a brand new car.”

“Uh...whatever you say, sir,” the employee says, giving him a weak smile as Jack heaves another sobbing laugh.

Has it really only been two weeks since they last saw each other?

It felt like years when they were apart -

But it’s only taken them five minutes to entwine their fingers and lives together again.

\---------

 

_I'd never fall in love with someone else again_

_If I could only taste your lips and this adrenaline_

_I'd never leave here, never leave your bed_

_I'd never leave here, never leave your bed_

 

\---------

**Segador y Soldado: Los Angeles Natural History Museum**

Saturday, July 6, 2052: 4:48 p.m. - The “History of Los Angeles” Exhibit in the LANHM, Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California

 

[Jack.Morrison]: I have some very important news for you.

[...]

[Ana.Amari]: Important enough to interrupt my beach day?

[Jack.Morrison]: ...You’re in Kauai.

[Ana.Amari]: Your point?

[Jack.Morrison]: Isn’t EVERY DAY a beach day?

[Ana.Amari]: Yes.

[Ana.Amari]: I treat each and every beach day with the same level of focused dedication

[Jack.Morrison]: …

[Ana.Amari]: Each and every beach day is deserving of the same serious, magnanimous spirit as any other.

[Jack.Morrison]: …

[Jack.Morrison]: I KNOW you are just lying on a beach as Reinhardt takes Fareeha snorkeling.

[Ana.Amari]: EXACTLY

[Ana.Amari]: do u have any idea how monumental a task this is??

[Ana.Amari]: it takes a lot of hard work to be this relaxed

[Jack.Morrison]: …

[Ana.Amari]: so wait

[Ana.Amari]: what did you wanna tell me?

[Jack.Morrison]: ...The Los Angeles Museum of Ice Cream opened on your birthday

[Ana.Amari]: oh sick

 

\---

Jack scowls at the conversation on his phone, stepping away from the small display talking about the iconic, if quirky museum focused entirely on frozen dairy treats.  The lighting in the “History of Los Angeles” exhibit at the Natural History Museum is casually dim, a dull, shadowy contrast to the bright, more recognizable Dinosaur exhibit just down the hall - the softer lighting here gives the artifact and object displays a moodier appearance, making them feel almost more like art pieces than small, concrete pieces of history.  A family steps in past him to take his place, gathering around a miniature of the original Museum of Ice Cream’s layout - all bold, pastel pinks and flavorful yellows - from when the “tastiest museum in the world” had opened in LA in 2017.

Jack taps to send a picture of the display to Ana, meandering over to where Gabriel is absently reading about the original California high-speed rail built in the late 2010’s.  Gabriel gazes over the life-size display of original seats from an original traincar, wondering skeptically if _those_ hard, uncomfortable-looking things had been really worth the price of a 2020 luxury ticket, before a shifting presence besides him draws his attention.

“Why didn’t we go to the Museum of Ice Cream?” Jack asks him with a teasing pout, and Gabriel smirks, saying, “Look - I promise you’ll like the new Crisis section here.”

“...More than I’d like the Museum of Ice Cream?” Jack retorts skeptically, rumbling with dry sarcasm, “I find that hard to believe.”

“Next opportunity I get, I’m ordering a ticket to the Museum of Ice Cream and going alone, just to spite you,” Gabriel taunts him right back, which gets Jack to flash that bright, wonderful, slightly crooked smile before they wander to the next set of displays - a section on the often awkward, often bumbling days of the early holo-video days, discussing the technological “war” between virtual reality and holo-projectors (called a sort of “augmented reality” back then).  Jack peers in closer at a set of “smart-glasses” that had started becoming more popular in the early 2020’s.  He gestures to it, saying to Gabriel, “Look how far we’ve come.”

“Yeah, because the single blueglass frames your face _so well_ ,” Gabriel grins mischievously, which gets Jack to elbow him lightly in the ribs, snorting, “You wear one too, you know.”

“I wear mine because it’s currently regulation - _you_ actually like it for some reason,” Gabriel replies as they move to a display talking about the “Big One” - a massive earthquake that had struck in the 2020’s.  There are pictures of the destruction it wreaked upon Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.  They pause, looking at a holographic, three-dimensional model showing how the San Andreas fault had shifted, how the shockwaves had rippled through layers of the earth’s crust to shatter the cities of southern California and devastated the entire region.  There’s a semi-somber seriousness as Gabriel murmurs, “...I barely remember any of it.”

Jack watches him, listening patiently.

Gabriel very rarely talks about his life before his last year of high school.

“...My parents talk about it more than I actually, like, have memories of,” Gabriel mutters, watching the miniature buildings crumble.  He turns and begins to stroll along a wall of shots and images of the destruction, Jack beside him.  They stare at a picture of a woman kneeling before the ruins of a house, head in her hands, as Gabriel sighs, “They say it was the greatest natural disaster in the 21st century in the United States, and the greatest in California since the 1906 quake.”

“I don’t know how so many people could face this kinda risk,” Jack says, as they move to a section talking about how the region had reconstructed after the dust had settled.  Gabriel grins him a wry smirk, snorting, “And I’ll never get over how people can live with tornadoes, but we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

“Oh no,” Jack chuckles, saying blithely, “Make no mistake - I _hate_ tornadoes.  I just also think earthquakes are terrifying.”

“The small ones aren’t too bad,” Gabriel says with a slight shrug.  The display they’re at shows how the city integrated then-innovative energy sources during the reconstruction to help make the region more efficient, and life had slowly resumed its usual bright, fast-paced normalcy.

And then

They stop

Staring at the large, crisp letters for the next section:

[Omnica Corporation].

“...Ah,” Jack says with an unhelpful dryness, “I see we’ve reached one of the the new sections.”

“Yup - the first one,” Gabriel replies, heading into the next room, Jack trailing closely behind him.

This room features the same sort of dim lightning, only there’s a strangely surreal, almost eerie sense to it now.  People stroll a little slower here, looking at the objects on display a little longer, eyes lingering with a little more weight.  There’s nothing horrifically sinister here, but the...implication is still dense on everyone’s minds.  In the first set of displays is a series of medical computer technologies, with the information panels talking about how Omnica had started as a simple bio-medical technology company in Irvine.  During the devastation of the Big One, the company had developed a brand new miniature robot that could operate on miniscule surgical tasks often too small for the human eye - fixing capillaries, repairing synapses, laying down artificial bone struts - only they could perform these faster, more securely, more confidently than most human surgeons.  During the disaster relief, human surgeons had overseen the work of the robots on worst, most critical cases, with many of their human patients recovering to full or near-full capacity.

Behind panes of glass, one of the tiny helper robots stands still and lifeless - no more than two inches high - as a holo-projector shows several of its siblings “in actions” in footage from the post-earthquake relief, an inset screen showing a microscopic view of the robots laying down layers of the bioartificial “glue” on top of bone fractures.

“...One of my uncles was operated on by one of these guys after the Big One,” Gabriel says casually, folding his arms as they watch the footage.  The LA-native continues with a low, ironic tone, “He got a punctured lung when his car slid out of control - always talks about how these little guys ‘saved his life’ in the hospital.”

“Considering that they’re the predecessors of our nanobots, some level of genuine gratitude is in order,” Jack hums thoughtfully, which gets Gabriel to nod, replying, “I’m not _ungrateful_ , that’s for sure - Raúl is my favorite uncle after all.  And we’d all be Soylent Green without their successor nanobots.”

But he scowls deeply, and Jack knows that he’s not mad, or frustrated -

Gabriel often makes this expression when he’s thinking or concentrating fiercely.

It had always given him a reputation of being “intimidating” or “hard,” but Jack had quickly learned that Gabriel was simply _tragic_ at controlling his expressions, and that many times, Gabriel’s thoughts often ran and flared out of control, frequently moving faster than even the man himself could fully express.

But Jack had also quickly learned that all Gabriel needed

Was a little space

A little patience

And a little encouragement.

“...I’m guessing there’s a conditional clause to this sentiment?” Jack half-jokes, half-asks, a small twinkle in his deep blue eyes that Gabriel does _not_ miss.  Gabriel sighs, trying to suss out some sense and order from the surging sunstar of his pulsing, burning thoughts, all of them flashing like brilliant points of light in his head, each one begging to be released into the space of Jack’s patient, encouraging soul, where they’ll settle in and plant themselves like seeds that bear stars.

“...It’s not so much about the robots themselves as it is about...history,” Gabriel starts slowly, picking out whatever semblance of a “thesis” he can make.  He frowns further, moving slowly towards the next display - a much larger “construction” robot, about as tall as he is, set on treads, painted with bright yellows and neon oranges.  Jack comes to stand beside him, his partner reading the small inscription on the glass:

[After their bio-medical surgical helper robots saved an estimated 1500 lives in the aftermath of the Big One, the county of Los Angeles contracted the Omnica Corporation to begin developing heavy industrial robots capable of clearing out the rubble.  These robots were utilized during the reconstruction phase of the 2020’s.]

“Humans...are so quick to forget,” Gabriel mutters, staring up at the simplistic face on the construction robot.  He taps a finger to his right cheekbone, spinning his burning, liquid thoughts into cohesive words, “We get so...stunned by surprise attacks.  ‘How could this happen?’ the people being attacked ask, ‘Where did this come from?’”

( _Omnica had given their robots simplistic, almost cute faces to make it easier for humans to be around them as they literally stitched nerves together and lifted several thousand pounds of concrete from the ground._ )

“But history...does not happen in surprise attacks,” Gabriel states, slowly moving towards the next display.  In this one, there’s a model of a new power-grid system, based on alternating flows of electricity from then-new solar panels and wind turbines.  The inscription details how the County of Los Angeles was so impressed with the Omnica’s set of “self-improving core algorithms” in its robots that it contracted the company for a multi-billion dollar deal to develop a “county-wide” state-run automated program to manage the new power projects.  Soon after, the surrounding counties pursued similar contracts with the robotics company.

“History does not occur in bursts,” Gabriel says, and while his thoughts rush and race and bleed, his words are slow, steady, deliberate.  And Jack -

Jack finds him _captivating_ like this.

“They only way we can tell the tale of history is by breaking up the flow into chunks, however large or small,” Gabriel continues, squinting hard at the model of the power grid.  The tactician - mind like a sharp-cut diamond, as brilliant as the sun caught in carbon - mutters with increasing intensity, “Humans cannot _truly_ handle a seamless flow of information, not on a conscious level, not on an analytical level.  If we could explain how every second of every minute of every hour of every day adds up into history, we would still be in the Middle Ages, scribbling down every pointless second we could remember.”

Gabriel turns to the next display, wandering over to it, Jack still listening patiently as his commander and partner murmurs, “History does not pause even when we put a bookmark in a page in the story.  History continues with or without us being aware of it.  History is a set of larger forces that connect us, but we can barely perceive them - and even then, only in retrospect.”

This display shows two models - one of the entire state of California, the other of specific series of buildings.

They both know the buildings.

They had fought in and out of them for several months.

The Bakersfield Omnium.

The caption on the display reads:

[With several high-profile deals, the Omnica Corporation became a global sensation almost overnight.  Shortly after the majority of the reconstruction of the San Fernando Valley was complete, the State of California commissioned Omnica to begin developing state-level artificial intelligences to manage many of the government’s electronic and networked programs.  At the same time, the Omnica Corporation began to increase production of its “Omnic robotics” model lines for manual labor projects.  Soon, many state-run automated programs operated on the same set of “self-improving core algorithms” as its individual robots or county-level programs.]

[To keep up with the increasingly multi-state and multinational consumer demands, the Omnica Corporation opened a brand new factory in Bakersfield.  Alongside human factory oversees, the main company developed a completely new, ultra-powerful supercomputer to help manage the facility.  This facility was shortly followed by a second one based in Krasnoyarsk, Russia.  Soon, there were hundreds of Omnica factories across the world.]

“Everything here has been crafted into a narration that makes sense to us now,” Gabriel says, walking toward the next display - a model of the structure of the “Bakersfield Central Control Core,” the supercomputer that had helped run the facility.  Jack stands beside him, looking at it with a distant, critical gaze.

They’ve seen hundreds of these at this point.

They’ve destroyed hundreds of these at this point.

“This exhibit is good,” Gabriel says with some affectionate approval in his voice, but he quickly switches back to a smokier focus, muttering, “But it’s missing a major subplot in our narrative about history.”

“...The nanobots,” Jack sighs.  He does not have to see the rest of the exhibit to know “the story arc” it is steadily - and powerfully - constructing from the retrospective gaze of history.  Gabriel flashes a bright, proud grin at him, chuckling happily, “Exactly!  It isn’t shying away from the fact that Omnica only really got a start because Los Angeles gave it one - just like any starry-eyed kid coming to strike it big.  But it’s very conveniently ignoring the fact that Omnica continued to produce the biotechnology that eventually became bio-nanobots.”

“...Not many people know that most biotic nanobots run on the same set of Omnic coding that all Omnica products had,” Jack replies with a wry, dry twist to his words.  Gabriel gives him a knowing, roguish smirk, saying bluntly, “It would cause mass panic if the truth got out.”

But his smirk falls again, as he mutters with that glint of obsidian intensity, “But history knows the truth, even if we tried to hide it.  And the larger forces that connect us and shape history - those larger forces will continue to affect the nanobots, even in ways we cannot perceive.  We can pretend this is merely a footnote in our book, but every good author knows the devil is in the details.”

“Ahahaha, are you saying that the nanobots will be history’s Chekhov’s gun?” Jack teases him, and Gabriel laughs back, cackling a little, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the rifle on the wall in the first act has already been used!  After all, we’re in the second act of the story right now, aren’t we?”

“You’re not gonna make it a shotgun?” Jack taunts him slightly, elbowing him gently.  Gabriel elbows him right back, causing Jack to squirm loosely in reaction, as Gabriel grins, “Well, then it would be called ‘Reyes’ shotgun.’”

“Did we just think of a new story trope?” Jack asks, and Gabriel snorts sarcastically, rumbling, “Isn’t it just a variation on an old trope?  What would it even be?”

“If someone puts the nanobots in the footnotes, they’ll return in the next chapter of the textbook?” Jack offers.  Gabriel contemplates it, before muttering, “Ain’t it suppose to focus on the shotgun as the plot device?”

“‘Reyes’ nanobots?’” Jack suggests unhelpfully, which gets Gabriel to roll his eyes, grumbling with a slight smirk, “You’re the one who uses the biotic fields, not me.  I have nothing to do with nanobots.”

“Maybe the clause is that the nanobots will return in a way you don’t expect?” Jack says, changing the conditions of their “new trope.”  Gabriel sighs, even as he grins at Jack, muttering, “Well, now we’re just gonna have to wait and see, huh?”

“History can’t spoil the ending for us, after all,” Jack smirks back, and Gabriel huffs, “Anyone who is ‘spoiled’ by the end of a history book hasn’t been paying attention.”

“How do you think this Crisis arc is gonna play out?” Jack asks him with a dark, wicked glint to his eyes and a massive shit-eating grin on his face, “I’m only in the middle of the book myself, but the odds really seem stacked in the robots’ favor.”

“Oh please, Jack,” Gabriel half-chides, half-chuckles, leaning against Jack’s shoulder playfully, putting utter dead weight on him.  Jack grunts slightly, shifting his stance to lock his legs, lifting an arm to wrap around Gabriel’s shoulders.  Playing along like the good champ he is, Jack half-drags, half-waddles them over to the next display, Gabriel being an unhelpful asshole even as he mutters dryly, “But in all seriousness, we’re only just starting to see the effects of the Crisis.  We have no idea where history is going to take this.”

“We won, the God Programs are captured, the Central Cores are dead, the Bastions and Spiders are being decommissioned,” Jack says as he squares them up against the next display.  The soldier huffs a little, “We’re going to start creating peace.”

“...I wish it were that easy,’ Gabriel whispers hoarsely.

This display...is different.

There’s a holo-projection showing a newsreel on repeat, as an announcer states through small, tinny speakers nearby:

“Scandal burst the tech bubble today as the top shareholders and directors of the Omnica Corporations were arrested on charges of fraud.  Investigations have revealed that nearly five-hundred _billion_ dollars are missing from the company’s accounts, a little bit over half of the company’s total estimated value.  FBI investigators say they do not know exactly where all the money has gone, but efforts are being made to access offshore accounts.”

Both men watch the newsreel in silence as the announcer continues, “This latest controversy comes at the end of a long series that has been plaguing the Omnica Corporation for the last several months.  Earlier this year, an anonymous source from within the company uploaded footage of the Krasnoyarsk factory producing heavily-armed robots.  This same footage was posted with scanned documents of a contract between the Omnica Corporation and the Ironclad Guild - a weapons-developing engineering organization - for the development of a ‘security-based model’ that would be ‘capable of replacing the average human soldier’ in military operations.”

Jack snorts slightly as Gabriel chuckles as a blueprint of the “SST Laboratories Siege Automaton E54” unit - a Bastion - appears on the screen.

They both know who the Ironclad engineer assigned to develop the model is.

They also both know that he’s probably fast asleep, considering it’s almost 2 in the morning in Zurich right now.

“Torb’s finest achievement,” Gabriel grins, causing Jack to lift his hand and rub at the side of Gabriel’s finely-buzzed head.  Gabriel almost _giggles_ at the ticklish, fission sensation across his scalp, as Jack sighs, “Be careful, Reyes, or I’ll tell him you said that.”

“Yeah, yeah, we both know you think that target-tracking program of his is the best thing since sliced bread,” Gabriel huffs, as Jack pulls them along towards the next room.  Gabriel rolls his eyes, adding dryly, “That tracking program was _my_ idea, by the way.”

“Whatever you say,” Jack chuckles wryly, clearly not sincere, and Gabriel is about to snap a sassy retort when -

They stop.

The lighthearted mood between them does not vanish entirely, but it does sizzle a little under the bright lights forming massive, looming letters above the dark entrance to the next section of the history exhibit:

[CRISIS].

Gabriel straightens up from leaning on Jack, instead entwining his left fingers through Jack’s right, and giving his hand a soft, gentle squeeze.  Jack sighs deeply, feeling the press of Gabriel’s fingertips against the back of his hand, the heated skin of Gabriel’s palm against his, and he steadies himself on the feeling of Gabriel holding him firmly but tenderly.  Gabriel glances at him, saying with a warm, if slightly bittersweet smile, “We got this, Juan.  It’s a good exhibit.”

“I take it it’s not... _too_ bad?” Jack asks hesitantly as Gabriel leads him through the entrance.  Inside, the room still features the same sort of modest, quiet dim lighting all around, but unlike previous parts of the exhibit, which used a cold, bright radiance to light the artifacts and objects, this section has a gently softer, gently humbler brightness around the displays.  It makes the items looks a little less intimidating, a little less terrifying to behold - still and skeletal like the fossils on display only a hall over.

“It really isn’t,” Gabriel admits as they approach the first display - a large model of Bakersfield, showing the expansion of the Omnic forces to claim the city, and then their spread across the very southern dip of the Central Valley of California, covering the major highways and cutting the state into two unequal “halves.”

“They really designed this stuff with the public in mind,” Gabriel continues, moving to the second half of the first display.  It shows how the then-sentient Central Core had started developing plans to invade the San Fernando Valley, demonstrating how the Bakersfield forces were going to “divide and conquer” by leaving a subset to hold the defensive line bisecting the San Joaquin Valley as an entry force would cut through the Tehachapi Mountains, enter into Los Angeles, and devastate the region.  Gabriel scowls a little as Jack watches the small arrows showing the original planned tactics of the Omnic forces, and Gabriel mutters, “It’s not...an emotional exhibit.  Just an educational one.”

“...One that continues the version of history they’re trying to tell?” Jack offers, getting Gabriel to nod along.  They meander to the next display - still hand-in-hand - and look up: the Bastion model there is practically in pieces, definitely beyond repair, more a shredded, exploded skeleton than anything else.  The display has the Bastion “half-assembled,” with the other half in pieces, mini-descriptors explaining what each part is.

In this state, the now-dead central core panel dim and cracked, the submachine gun broken apart into pieces, the Gatling gun sitting there with the main mechanisms removed -

It is not nearly as terrifying.

Gabriel feels Jack ease up slightly, his eyes roaming over the display, before he flashes a bold, haughty smirk at Gabriel, chuckling, “Dare you to send a pic to Torb with the caption ‘your finest achievement.’”

“...And risk getting killed in my sleep when we go back to work?” Gabriel asks him, appalled, “I thought you loved me, Jack - why would you want me to risk my life like that?”

“Obviously all I want is the hover car," Jack smirks as they wander to the Spider unit display.  It has a similar set-up to the Bastion one - one half of the Spider turret unit is assembled, the other half separated out into its anatomical pieces.  As they look in silence, Jack finally mumbles, “Okay, I have kind of a weird, possibly insensitive question to ask -”

“Aaaaaand _now_ I’m concerned,” Gabriel chuckles back but Jack just scowls, asking lowly, “Isn’t this...pretty rude?”

“Isn’t what pretty rude?” Gabriel replies with some confusion, raising an eyebrow at his partner.  Jack points to the Spider unit, saying, “Isn’t this like the Omnic equivalent of those dead body anatomy exhibits?”

Gabriel stops, his thoughts grinding to a halt as he considers it.

His eyes go wide, as a breathless “ _Mierda_ ” escapes his lips and Jack grins sheepishly, muttering, “Sorry, just thought it was...odd seeing them up here like this.”

“Well...if their computing cores are removed, are they really here?” Gabriel asks, pulling Jack along to the next display.  This one shows a model of Omnic-controlled Bakersfield, only as the “march” of Omnic troops begins to head south, new symbols representing the US Army appear - miniature jets and ships (the very first of their kind) landing human troops along the Tehachapi Mountain range, preventing the march to LA.  

“Isn’t that like saying it’s okay to display human remains as long as the brains are removed?” Jack retorts which gets Gabriel to frown in moral and ethical consternation.  The commander racks his thoughts, churning out different arguments for pros and cons, running down all the different debates and discussions about displaying the dead for the living to see, if Omnics even truly die or if they are simply unrepaired, if an AI sentience could be cloned -

And then he just gives up.

“This topic is like...waaaaay more than I bargained for on my first vacation day with you,” Gabriel states dryly.  Jack laughs brightly, perking right back up as he rumbles, “Being more than you bargained for is basically my purpose in life!”

“No shit, you got that right,” Gabriel grumbles, tugging at Jack’s hand.  The two of them head over to the next case - a series of US Army supplies.  There’s a partially-assembled regular pulse rifle, a biotic field capsule expanded and radiating a pretend healing glow with dramatic backdrop lighting, examples of the then-new chestplate and body armor designs, showing the different layers of protective material that went into them.

“Hmm, they make them all look so noble here,” Jack grins, tapping the glass over the biotic field capsule.  Gabriel grins back, sighing with a surprisingly gentle contentment, “The biotic fields at least have a noble purpose.  You’re always the one reminding me of how many times you saved my life with them.”

“And I’m also always the one reminding you that they literally work with the press of a button,” Jack replies with a sarcastic smirk, before muttering with a little more bittersweet sourness, “...You never _needed_ to use two shotguns.”

“Uh, obviously ‘badassery’ needs to use both hands,” Gabriel teases him as they head to the next display.  Jack rolls his eyes, snorting with a deep, jokingly bitter huff, “If Mr. Badass can learn to reload with two shotguns, he could learn to deploy a biotic field with two shotguns.”

“You mean by shooting it, right?” Gabriel smirks at him, which gets Jack to give him a deadpan expression and a very dry, long sigh.

“I’d be like, ‘Team, heal up here!’ and then blast the biotic field in the air,” Gabriel continues as they line up before the next model.  Jack rolls his eyes, but a grin cracks across his face as Gabriel rambles, “Oh shit, wait, I just had a thought - stay with me here -”

He turns himself towards Jack, gilded-obsidian eyes glittering like smoke backlit by fire, and he whispers with fierce excitement, “Shotguns...that shoot biotic fields.”

Jack stares at him, mouth hanging open a little, expression torn between awe, shock, and slight horror, resulting in a befuddled twisted look on his face that sends a thrill of joy up Gabriel’s spine.

“...That’s...actually not a bad idea, and I fucking _hate_ that it actually kinda works,” Jack snaps in broken despair, mostly at himself for entertaining the idea.  Gabriel’s scowl twists into a mixed shit-eating scowl-smirk as he laughs, “Just picture it -”

“Oh god.”

“Me, with gold stars for being the best shotgun-medic in the world,” Gabriel beams wickedly, “Me being the best combat doctor in the world -”

“Yeah?” Jack taunts back, “What would your advice be?  ‘Just shoot them, these shotgun pellets heal?’”

“Yeah, like, ‘Trust me, kids, I’m a certified field medic,’” Gabriel retorts, getting Jack to laugh loudly.  Gabriel pantomimes shooting a shotgun with his right hand, lowering his voice an octave to sound gruffer as he grumbles out with a mocking tone, “Aw, back in my day, soldier, we had to actually press buttons on these damn things - ain’t none of these fancy, biotic shotguns lying around!  No, we had to heal ourselves with a big glowing circle like cavemen!”

“Stop, this idea is so ridiculous, Gabe!” Jack laughs, the sound swelling like the rumble of a summer thunderstorm, and Gabriel twists that wry, smoky smirk at him, saying back with his regular voice, “That’s what you’re gonna sound like in thirty years when everyone is using biotic shotguns and you’re still using biotic fields.”

“There’s a horrific level of accuracy to that,” Jack half-grumbles, half-teases him, “And it ain’t the ‘biotic shotgun’ part.”

“Biotic pulse rifle?” Gabriel suggests and Jack snorts, “Oh god, _no_ -”

“Wait, no,” Gabriel grins wickedly, viciously, as he mutters:

“ _Biotic rocket hammer_.”

“Those are three words that should _never_ go together,” Jack grins, a few raspy chuckles still breaking out between the words.  They both sigh with miserably happy contentment, stilling for a moment until Jack whispers, “God, the mere thought of Reinhardt as a field medic is _fucking horrifying_ -”

“‘Come here, Jack!,’” Gabriel taunts, taking on a highly exaggerated Reinhardt voice, “‘Let ze gentle and loving swings of my hammer heal you!’”

Jack gives a full body shudder, muttering, “The image that just popped into my head gave me chills.”

“He crushes you, breaking every bone in your body and simultaneously fixing them,” Gabriel snorts.  Jack scrunches his face in mock pain, murmuring, “This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard, and that’s a high list to top.”

“I gotta be the best,” Gabriel taunts, pressing his right hand to his chest as he beams proudly over himself, “Even if that means besting myself.”

“Oh, don’t worry - you’re the only person even on this list,” Jack mutters sarcastically, giving Gabriel a wry smirk, “Believe me, it’s not much of a challenge for you to out-do yourself.”

“I don’t know if I should be pleased or insulted by that,” Gabriel grumbles, and Jack just squeezes his hand happily, looking at the model of the US Army surrounding Bakersfield.  They watch the small figures and symbols display the several-month stalemate, before Jack grins, pointing to a small tent on the edges of the US Army’s southern encampment, murmuring, “I found our tent.”

“Haha, very funny,” Gabriel laughs dryly, before pulling on Jack hand, gesturing to his right as he says, “C’mon, you’ll like the next part.”

“Hmm, you keep saying that, but this is all stuff I’ve seen before,” Jack teases him as they approach the next display.  But Jack squints, and then his eyes go wide as he processes the map of the city behind the glass, the little scribbles and untidy scrawl familiar and welcoming all at once.

“This is your map!” Jack says with bursting excitement, leaning in to look at the description.  Gabriel smiles with faint pride as Jack reads, the description sounding perfect and warm in his low, seastorm voice:

“A map of the Bakersfield siege.  Detailed on the map is the strategy planned by Special Forces Commander Gabriel Reyes for how to bypass the Bastion sentry line and infiltrate the Omnium facility.”

Jack looks up, giving him a knowing, shit-eating grin as he chuckles, “‘Special Forces?’”

“I guess SEP isn’t declassified yet,” Gabriel snorts, before pointing to the next display, towards Jack’s left.  Jack glances that way, looking at the podium set under stark, bright white lights.  There’s a small crowd gathered around it, people taking pictures and murmuring with an odd sort of reverence.  Jack glances back at Gabriel, who flicks his head, gesturing that they should move towards it.  Jack leads the way over there, still hand-in-hand with Gabriel.  Their decent height allows them to see over some of the families and tourists gathered around, and their eyes flick to the bold lettering over the display:

[Bakersfield Central Control Core].

Jack scowls, looking down at the several pieces of the “supercomputer” that had housed the Bakersfield Central Control Core.  Behind the glass display, there are sets of damaged, partially destroyed hardware - computer boards, hanging wires, pieces of smartglass all still interlocked into a strange, shattered “harddrive,” hardly bigger than a basketball.

And there are small signs -

The glass _melted_ at the edges of the breaks, the green motherboard stained a bold, stark black, the wires twisted and sealed together, almost like dripping wax resolidified, bits and pieces of shotgun plasma-slag still embedded in the verdant plastic -

Smears of deep, rust-red blood, smudged along the glass and plastic container -

Dotted with fingerprints.

Gabriel’s fingerprints.

“...They have permission to display this?” Jack whispers to the very same Gabriel next to him, his tone riddled with anxious concern.  Gabriel shrugs loosely, replying in the same low voice, “I mean...it’s the main one I brought back, but it’s not like it’s the only one - there were hundreds of motherboards in there.”  

Gabriel frowns, sighing as he mutters slowly, “...I guess the Army probably still has the others.”

Jack gives him a worried look, but also scowls, heaving a deep exhale as he gazes over the pieces of the Central Core.  

A deep, bitter-and-bittersweet silence falls over them as they stare at it.  Fingers squeeze, and the other’s hand grips tighter, until -

“...It’s hard to think that was six years ago,” Jack murmurs, but his voice sounds distant.  Gabriel looks at him, sees how those eyes of deep blue appear a little darker, a little hazier, and he tugs at Jack’s hand, trying to pull him back from the time lost to war.  Jack doesn’t say anything else, just lets Gabriel pull him along, around the display as his commander and partner chuckles, “C’mon, I got a good reminder for you -”

But there’s a sort of hollow distance to Gabriel’s voice that snaps Jack out of it.

“Gabe, I’m - I’m fine, really -” Jack starts to say, but deadstops.

Because on the back wall of the exhibit, there are a series of larger than life pictures, framed with clever lighting that somehow manages to spell out VICTORY in shifting patterns across them.  The first picture is a group of American soldiers cheering as they rush across the broken Bastion sentry line; the next image is a convoy of hover carriers and trucks moving back into the city, surging forward past the ruins of buildings; the third image is someone hoisting an American flag high against a smoke-filled sky.

But the fourth image.

Jack’s mind breaks a little.

Gabriel grins smugly.

The fourth image is the two of them, from six years ago, after they had finally broken the long, exhausting battle and destroyed the Central Core.  They’re wrapped into a deep embrace, and while their faces are not totally visible from the angle of the picture, Jack can immediately tell it’s them - every then-fresh scar on Gabriel’s body, his Bastion armor partially torn-off, every fluff of Jack’s gold-blonde hair, his own uniform oil and blood-splattered.

The sheer, utter, bitter-and-bittersweet _relief_ that is evident in how deeply they are kissing.

Jack’s jaw drops.

Gabriel pulls out his phone, and snaps a picture of him.

Jack whips his head towards Gabriel, his expression open and wide and _horrified_.

Gabriel begins to _giggle_.

“WHAT,” Jack half-states, half-shouts, half-demands, drawing startled looks from several people around them.  Gabriel begins to _wheeze_ with laughter, his whole body shuddering as he tries to cough into his right elbow.  Jack rounds on him, stammering, “WHAT - WHY - HOW - _What is this doing here, who took this picture, what the hell_ -”

“ _The look on your face_ ,” Gabriel barely manages to choke out, gasping for air, “ _Mierda, joder_ , I already saw this exhibit last week, but this second trip was _totally_ worth it -”

“YOU’VE SEEN THIS??” Jack half-demands, half-stammers, and Gabriel grins wickedly, giggling, “You wanna know who else has seen this?”

“ _Everyone in Los Angeles??_ ” Jack wheezes, whipping his left hand up to grip at Gabriel’s right shoulder, shaking him slightly.  Gabriel is unperturbed, though, snorting with a roguish smirk:

“My parents.”

Jack freezes.

And then Gabriel holds up his phone, wiggling the screen in front of Jack’s face as he laughs, “And someone else.”

On the display is a messaging conversation from a week ago, between Gabriel and -

Jack’s mind breaks a little further.

Because the other person is _his mother_.

At the top of the chat is a photo of the larger-than-life picture on the wall, and Gabriel gives Jack a second to process it before he scrolls down to more of the conversation.

 

[[Gabriel.Reyes] sent a photo.]

[...]

[Marianne.Morrison]: Oh!

[Marianne.Morrison]: this is amazing!

[Gabriel.Reyes]: I thought you might appreciate it, ma’am

[Marianne.Morrison]: lol you thought correctly, Gabriel

[Marianne.Morrison]: where is this?

[Gabriel.Reyes]: The LA Natural History Museum

[Gabriel.Reyes]: they have an exhibit on the Crisis and Jack and I got a spot on the wall of Victory lol

[Marianne.Morrison]: were you two trying to recreate every famous post-war kiss picture ever?

[Gabriel.Reyes]: honestly...no lol

[Gabriel.Reyes]: it had been...a pretty horrific battle

[Marianne.Morrison]: yes I heard stories of Bakersfield.

[Marianne.Morrison]: I am glad you made it out safely, Gabriel.

[Gabriel.Reyes]: thank you, ma’am

[Marianne.Morrison]: but I am mostly glad that my son and his boyfriend have become an iconic part of post-war Americana victory kisses visual art

[Gabriel.Reyes]: omg

[Marianne.Morrison]: this is beautiful.  I might print this out and frame it.

[Gabriel.Reyes]: hahahahaha, oh my god, that would be amazing, ma’am

[Gabriel.Reyes]: oh but if it’s okay, don’t tell Jack

[Gabriel.Reyes]: I want to show him when he comes here next week

[Marianne.Morrison]: be sure to tell me what his reaction is!

\---

 

Gabriel gives Jack a deep, deadly, _delicious_ smirk, moving his thumb to hover over the “send picture” button and Jack -

He releases both hands from Gabriel, lunging at the phone.

Gabriel manages to whip the phone away from him in time, dancing backwards lithely, but Jack is undaunted, striking forward, lunging again as he snaps, “GABRIEL -”

“Careful, Juanito,” Gabriel taunts, laughing loudly as people oggle them.  He waves the phone again, trying to dangle it just out of Jack’s reach, mocking him teasingly, “You never know what button I might hit -”

Jack sees his opening.

He swoops it, moving low and striking like lightning - wrapping his right arm around Gabriel’s waist, pulling Gabriel’s torso closer, right up against his, night-blue eyes flashing with a devilish glint before he grins deeply, sweeping in and -

Jack kisses Gabriel.

Gabriel freezes.

The kiss is warm, like a burst of sunshine, like Gabriel is sinking into a deep, pleasant sea of Jack’s love and admiration, Jack’s pride and respect.  There’s the barest flicker of heat, the promise of something deeper, stronger, like an undercurrent that they could both easily dive into, given the right time and place, but for now they stay close to the surface, relishing in the feeling of lips and breath, the soft, curling hairs of a mustache and beard and the rougher bristles of near-5-o’clock scruff, the feeling of two smug smirks being melted together into a moment that is boundless, bright joy -

There’s a moment where Gabriel thinks of nothing but Jack, but Jack -

His left fingers snake around the phone, still lifted in the air -

Gabriel snaps back.

There’s a brief second of the reflexes in their hands struggling before either of them fully processes it, but they break their kiss to shoot fierce, scowling grins at each other, Gabriel hissing, “That was a dirty trick, Jack -”

“All’s fair in love and war, Gabe -” Jack starts to retort, as they struggle in their play-fighting for a moment, people continuing to give them strange looks because two 6-1 buff men fighting each other over a phone while locked in a lover’s embrace in the middle of a war exhibit of a museum is a _little_ odd.

And then suddenly

Someone’s thumb slips.

...Maybe both of their thumbs slip, it’s hard to say in the moment and neither one will ever accept blame for this incident.

But anyways, thumbs slip, the display on the screen shifts briefly -

And then there’s a jangling chime noise as the phone processes something.

Both men stop their banter and only-semi-fake-fighting to _freeze_.  They stare at each other in awe-struck horror, until Gabriel whispers breathlessly, “...Oh shit.”

“...Who did you send that to?” Jack mutters in terror.  Both men immediately straighten back up, Gabriel whipping the phone to his face.  Jack peers in over his shoulder, and they read:

[Group Chat: [WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS]]

 

[[Gabriel.Reyes] sent a photo.]

[...]

[Ana.Amari]: ...incredible

[Reinhardt.Wilhelm]: OMG

[Reinhardt.Wilhelm]: THIS PICTURE IS AMAZING JACK

[Ana.Amari]: I’m sending this to Gabrielle

\---

 

Jack makes an aghast, shocked noise, ripping his own phone out of his pocket as Gabriel laughs, typing into the group chat:

 

[Gabriel.Reyes]: do it

[Jack.Morrison]: DON’T YOU DARE, ANA AMARI

[Ana.Amari]: lol too late

[Reinhardt.Wilhelm]: why did you make this face Jack?

\---

 

Jack whips towards Gabriel, but it’s already too late - Gabriel is taking another picture of their kiss image on the wall, and a split second later, Jack’s own phone vibrates with the message.

 

[[Gabriel.Reyes] sent a picture.]

[Jack.Morrison]: HOW DARE YOU

[Jack.Morrison]: BETRAYED BY MY OWN BOYFRIEND

[Ana.Amari]: oh this pic lol

[...]

[Jack.Morrison]: what

[Gabriel.Reyes]: oh have yall seen this already?

[Ana.Amari]: Gabrielle sent us this pic ages ago

\---

 

The widest, smuggest smile breaks out on Gabriel’s face as he’s turning victoriously towards Jack, who is looking at his phone like every single one of his friends is fake.  Jack gives Gabriel a deep, only-semi-fake-scowl, before tapping at his phone furiously:

 

[Jack.Morrison]: BETRAYED BY MY OWN BOSS

[Ana.Amari]: lol yea basically

[Reinhardt.Wilhelm]: it is a very cute picture tho!

[Gabriel.Reyes]: glad someone appreciates it

[Jack.Morrison]: I appreciate it when it’s not TWELVE FEET TALL IN A PUBLIC MUSEUM

[Torbjörn.Lindholm]: WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS

[Gabriel.Reyes]: oh shit

[Torbjörn.Lindholm]: IT IS 2 AM HERE STOP

[Ana.Amari]: turn off notifications ffs

[Torbjörn.Lindholm]: that involves changing the settings

[Ana.Amari]: it’s absolutely HILARIOUS that the engineer is the one who never wants to adjust his phone

[Torbjörn.Lindholm]: because that involves eventually changing them BACK, Ana

[Gabriel.Reyes]: I respect those who take the path of least resistance in life

[Jack.Morrison]: says the man who ended the Crisis

[Reinhardt.Wilhelm]: Who wants more cute pictures??

[Torbjörn.Lindholm]: NO

[Ana.Amari]: REIN NO

[Gabriel.Reyes]: REIN YES

[[Reinhardt.Wilhelm] sent a picture.]

\---

 

Both men pause as the image loads in of Ana running around with seven-year-old Fareeha on her back - both mother and daughter have their arms outstretched like airplanes or bird wings, smiles bright and radiant on their faces.  They share a glance at each other - Gabriel’s smile wry and easy, Jack’s grin bold and cheerful - before -

Gabriel holds out his left hand again, and Jack takes it, entwining their fingers.

“...Hang on, wait,” Jack mutters suddenly, letting go of Gabriel’s hand.  Gabriel raises an eyebrow in skepticism as Jack darts around him, gesturing to Gabriel with his left hand instead.  Gabriel rolls his eyes, passing his phone from his right hand to his left, taking Jack’s on the opposite side this time, muttering dryly, “It’s not hard to learn with your left, you know.”

“You’re ambidextrous, just use your B-level superpower and hold my hand while you type,” Jack retorts, but his smile is still wide and his joy infectious, and Gabriel finds himself beaming again.  They begin to head towards the exit of the exhibit, as they return to the conversation on their phones:

 

[Gabriel.Reyes]: that one is cute, Rein

[Ana.Amari]: that’s the ONLY cute one

[Jack.Morrison]: oh man now I’m curious

[Reinhardt.Wilhelm]: They are all cute, Schatz!

[Ana.Amari]: REIN

[[Reinhardt.Wilhelm] sent a picture.]

\---

 

The next picture is slightly out of focus, off to the side, but it’s _supposedly_ an image of Ana and Fareeha walking along the beach.  There’s also three other random tourists in the image, one dog, and a cut-off ice cream stand.  Gabriel snorts as Jack chuckles.

 

[Jack.Morrison]: this is high art

[Ana.Amari]: oh just wait

[Torbjörn.Lindholm]: I cant believe I woke up for this

[[Reinhardt.Wilhelm] sent a picture.]

[[Reinhardt.Wilhelm] sent a picture.]

[[Reinhardt.Wilhelm] sent a picture.]

[[Reinhardt.Wilhelm] sent a picture.]

[Gabriel.Reyes]: oh holy shit

[[Reinhardt.Wilhelm] sent a picture.]

[[Reinhardt.Wilhelm] sent a picture.]

[[Reinhardt.Wilhelm] sent a picture.]

[[Reinhardt.Wilhelm] sent a picture.]

[Jack.Morrison]: jfc

[Torbjörn.Lindholm]: I’m muting this chat

[[Reinhardt.Wilhelm] sent a picture.]

[[Reinhardt.Wilhelm] sent a picture.]

[[Reinhardt.Wilhelm] sent a picture.]

[Ana.Amari]: REIN PLEASE

[Reinhardt.Wilhelm]: but I still have so many!

[Gabriel.Reyes]: two weeks of these absolutely stunning visual masterpieces

[Torbjörn.Lindholm]: Rein none of these are in frame!

[Reinhardt.Wilhelm]: #aesthetic

[Reinhardt.Wilhelm]: #avant garde

[Gabriel.Reyes]: it’s poppin fresh, I’ll give you that

[Ana.Amari]: dont encourage him

[Jack.Morrison]: I actually...really like them

[...]

\---

 

As they step out into the bright, natural sunlight of the main halls of the Natural History Museum, Gabriel turns and gives Jack a deadpan, emotionless stare.  Jack shrugs with a bashful grin on his face, muttering, “They’re like...really natural street photography.”

“He’s taking thousands of pictures of tourists on the beach,’ Gabriel retorts dryly, but Jack just scrolls up to an image.  It’s still just...slightly _off_ , down low to the ground, and in the right section, just where the ⅓ cutoff is, is Fareeha.  She is rising to the balls of her feet a little, attempting to look over a counter at a hotel somewhere, with the lower half of Ana next to her, Ana’s left hand resting on her head.  The rest of the picture is kind of an awkward, long shot of the rest of the lobby of the hotel, but it ripples out to a distant view of the beach and the ocean beyond.

“This one,” Jack says, smiling faintly, “Is cute.  Fareeha isn’t centered, but the emptiness of the picture draws your eye to her.  And it shows a natural moment with her mother.”

Gabriel stares at the image on Jack’s phone contemplatively, rethinking how he initially processed the picture, before he asks slowly, “Do you want to be in charge of pictures on our roadtrip?”

Jack looks at him with surprisingly open candor, slightly shocked that Gabriel would offer the role to him, before he smiles with a little bit of mischief to his grin and a gleam to his dark eyes, challenging him:

“...How about a photo contest?”

Gabriel looks at him, coolly assessing his partner before he smirks back, asking, “What’s the reward?”

“Hmm…” Jack hums, looking out over the crowded, bustling atrium of the museum, thinking on it, before he tilts his head back towards Gabriel, smiling viciously, “Winner gets to decide where we go on our next block leave?”

Gabriel pauses, and then flashes a deep, deadly, delicious grin, murmuring, “I like it.  Who are the judges?”

“Well, I figured it would just be us, but...what about if we show the others our three favorite pictures, and they have to pick the best one?” Jack suggests.  Gabriel thinks it over - his sense of aesthetic is far stronger than Jack’s, but Jack has a strange knack for somehow capturing pictures with a “down-to-earth” appeal.  

Even so…

It’s a small, almost senseless, almost pointless endeavor.

They both want to travel the world together anyways.

It has never mattered where or when.

It’s a small, almost senseless, almost pointless endeavor -

And it’s exactly what Gabriel wants.

“...Sure,” Gabriel agrees, and Jack’s whole face lights up with his smile, eager and enthusiastic and excited.

Gabriel snaps a picture of his face.

“Oh hey what,” Jack stammers as Gabriel chuckles darkly to himself, saving the image.  Jack pouts slightly, murmuring, “You’re not gonna win with a picture like that.”

“It’s not about winning or losing, Jack,” Gabriel grins, “It’s about sending a message.  Now c’mon - I’m getting hungry again.”

“That’s because we didn’t eat a real lunch,” Jack retorts with a smirk, as they set off, hand-in-hand, across the atrium.

\---------

 

_You said you still remember the words_

_To every single song that we heard_

_Driving California, sky looked like a swimming pool_

 

_Ever since you pulled me apart_

_In darkness in that garden in Echo Park_

_Dreams come easy, I just disappear in you_

 

_Let's stop all this talking_

 

\---------

**Segador: Griffith Observatory**

Saturday, July 6, 2052: 8:24 p.m. - Griffith Observatory, Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California

 

“This was my favorite part of visiting L.A. last time.”

Jack flashes Gabriel a wide, half-lit grin, Jack’s right fingers squeezing the back of Gabriel’s left hand, and Gabriel gives him a warm chuckle back.  They’re winding their way up the sweeping sidewalk towards the stately Griffith Observatory, somehow managing to weave through the clusters of tourists and families, hands keeping them anchored together.  The crowds aren’t _dense_ , per se, but there’s just enough people around them to make Gabriel feel slightly stifled - the air has finally cooled off for the evening, the sun having just set behind the scrub-brushed Hollywood hills to the west, and it’s just chilled enough to warrant pulling the sweatshirt and beanie from the backseat of the car, but the amount of other people around them is enough to make Gabriel give them all uncertain, side-eye glances.

Still, he anchors himself on Jack’s bright, effervescent smile -

And the gilded glow of soft, hazy lights that illuminate the Observatory.

By all accounts, the building should be imposing, almost cold, but somehow, in person it carries an almost gentle, welcoming presence - the white-painted concrete is bright during the day, and cast in a burnished, tarnished bronzed gold in the deepening night, the tall glass windows and doors open and inviting even as the evening settles into the hills.  Though the domes of the telescopes are a dark, inky metal, they soften the harder, firmer angles of the art deco exterior, making the building look less like an institution and more like a temple to the stars.

Not that there are...many stars above Los Angeles.

The sky itself is mostly clear, a blue swelling into black as the last bits of sunlight drift away, but night is never truly full, never truly deep in the San Fernando valley.  Even as they move up the western sidewalk on the edge of the south-facing slope, Gabriel can already see the pollution of lights humming along the horizon, like a sun that never fully sets but merely spreads to coat the valley in dewy, copper bell lights.  They’re not out in full force quite yet, but soon -

Soon -

( _July 6, 2043: 8:38 p.m. -  Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, California_ )

_“You can’t even see any stars up here!”_

_Jack gives Gabriel a sly, smug grin, his words dripping with boisterous sarcasm, which in turn gets Gabriel to give him a deadpan pout, eyebrows raised in an unimpressed manner.  The two of them are making their way up to Griffith Observatory, strolling along the sweeping sidewalk to the western edge of the ridge among the meandering tourists and families.  The evening has cooled off enough to warrant Gabriel shrugging on his sweatshirt and beanie, and Jack has rolled his sleeves down slightly, but the Indiana-native keeps touting that “it isn’t that hot or cold out here - you should visit me in Bloomington next year!  I’ll show you some real humidity.”_

_The offer had...admittedly made Gabriel’s stomach twist into tighter knots._

_He knows what’s happening.  He’s not blind to these things.  He’s had crushes before._

_They were never on someone he could call his “best friend,” though._

_It was temptingly dangerous and dangerously tempting territory._

_But if there’s anything Gabriel could pride himself on_

_It’s knowing when to strike_

_And knowing when to pull his punches._

_Gabriel rolls his eyes, sighing heavily, “The telescopes can see past all the light pollution just fine.  And besides -” he adds, giving Jack a shit-eating grin, “- All the stars are on the streets here.”_

_“Ah.  Ha ha,” Jack ‘laughs’ back dryly, rolling his eyes over Gabriel’s bad joke.  But the younger cadet does give him a real chuckle and a knowing smirk, saying, “At least we have real stars out in Bloomington.  And lightning bugs too.”_

_“The fuck is a ‘lightning bug?’” Gabriel half-jokes, half-states, and Jack gawks at him awkwardly before asking with genuine curiosity, “You don’t know what a lightning bug is?  A firefly?”_

_“Oh, that?  Why didn’t you call them that?” Gabriel asks.  Jack gives him a long, assessing look before muttering suspiciously, “...Because ‘lightning bug’ is the correct term for them?”_

_“Bullshit it is,” Gabriel snorts, and Jack starts to retort -_

“Funny - I thought you preferred places with ‘real stars?’” Gabriel asks Jack coyly.  His captain gives him a smirking scowl, before teasing him slyly, “Aww, Gabe - _you’re_ the only star I see.”

“...Good recovery,” Gabriel snorts as they approach the western side of the building.  They unlink their hands briefly to start climbing the narrow side stairs, reaching the upper story with ease as a family of five works their way past them.  Jack approaches the south-facing railing first, his eyes - blue verging on the darkness of night as the evening continues to steep into the earth before them - gaze across the shimmering sprawl of Los Angeles before them, the lights slowly easing on.

It’s a sight Gabriel never gets tired of.

The stars in the skies above Los Angeles are rarely visible to the eye -

But the stars that dust the streets glow and glitter, rippling out before them like molten gold.

There is no sea quite like the sea of fallen stars of Los Angeles, a swelling tide of streetlamps with undercurrents of rivering headlights, windows flickering to vibrant life as the distant people behind them brighten their world to push back the rise of the dusk.  Every drop of light is a radiant molecule of captured sunshine, pale under the boldness of true daytime, but burning beautifully against the shifting fabric of blue, shadowy night.  Everything is burnished bronze bells tempered with tarnished, tranquil tenderness - up here, hard-cut corners and unhemmed edges are softened by the dreamlike quality of the city of angels alighting itself.

Gabriel comes to stand beside Jack, leaning against the railing as Jack whispers with murmured reverence, “This is why this was my favorite part.”

“Well, I can’t blame you for that,” Gabriel mutters.  Jack playfully bumps his right shoulder against Gabriel’s left, asking with an obvious angle, “Wanna know what makes this time better than last time?”

“You mean it isn’t the brand new hover car?” Gabriel grins, and Jack -

His whole face lights up with a brightness that makes the starscape of Los Angeles look dim in comparison.

Gabriel’s breath hitches slightly.

“It’s that I get to do this,” Jack smirks at him, before threading his right fingers back through Gabriel’s left, dropping his head on Gabriel’s left shoulder, the fluff of his blonde hair tickling against Gabriel’s neck just briefly.  Instinctively, Gabriel is already adjusting, making miniscule movements, opening up a little more space, shifting his weight on his legs to better support them as Jack leans against him, his hand squeezing Gabriel’s gently.  Gabriel exhales with a touch of reverence, “You’re such a little shit sometimes, Jack.”

“Only sometimes?” Jack laughs lightly, the low rumble sending vibrations through his chest and into Gabriel’s arm.  A few more lights flicker on in the swell of urban stars below them, and Gabriel sighs, resting his own head against the top of Jack’s, content just to feel Jack’s still, rhythmic breathing for a pause.  They lean on each other, an island of relative calm as the people ebb and flow around them, but it’s Gabriel who breaks it with a soft murmur:

“...I always wanted to bring my kids here someday.”

He feels Jack shift against him a little, his captain tilting his head slightly to glance up at him as Gabriel adjusts his own head to look down at him.  Jack gives him a quizzical look, not missing a beat as he picks up on the key word, asking with a slow, almost sinking suspicion, “...‘Wanted?’”

Gabriel frowns slightly, looking back over the shimmer of lights as he mutters wistfully, “C’mon, Jack - the Strike-Commander and Strike-Captain of Overwatch won’t have time for kids.”

“Ana had plenty of time to see Fareeha this past year,” Jack points out, and while there’s no...true anger to his tone, Gabriel can sense a still, rhythmic pulse to his partner’s words.  But Gabriel just sighs, saying gently, “...Jack, it took just the two of us nine years to come back here.  Overwatch is looking at another four to five years of just transitioning from the task force to peacekeeping.”

Jack is quiet, but Gabriel feels him squeeze his hand a little firmer in response.  Gabriel squeezes back as Jack reassures him gently:

“We made the right choice.”

And as Gabriel watches the sea of artificial stars ebb and flow before him, he knows - oh he knows - that Jack is right, they did what they had to do, they fought the war they had to fight, they saved the world they had to save -

But still.

A part of him wishes on a sea of fallen stars that maybe, just maybe

Someone else should have done those things instead.

Nine years to return here.  He had gained Jack’s hand in his, gained Jack’s heart and Jack’s genuine, brilliant, loving smile -

But there’s a war memorial in downtown Los Angeles with the names of friends and fallen stars on it

And nine years of training and fighting and shooting and killing and surviving and fearing and strategizing and planning and pleading and begging and hoping that he can’t get back.

And there’s a dangerous thought in his head -

_Was it worth it?_

That threatens to engulf the sea of fallen stars and the city of angels in his mind in a deep, slow, frustrated, bitter-and-bittersweet darkness.

But Gabriel has always known when to strike

And when to pull his punches.

So he pushes the sticky-sweet storm brewing on the edges of his mind to the west of the Hollywood hills and chuckles dryly, “But was it worth the ten-dollar parking, Jack?”

“Gabe, isn’t the real question if treating _me_ to the best view of the city is worth ten-dollar parking?” Jack teases him wryly, which manages to burst brilliant, sparking laughter like sunshine in Gabriel’s chest, and he shakes and wheezes-coughs out as Jack lifts his head, giving him a bold, arrogant, charming smirk -  

_[December 27, **2057** : 7:36 p.m. - Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, California]_

_“BEAT YOU TO THE TOP -”_

_The words are hardly out of thirteen-year-old Fareeha’s mouth before she’s bolting across the lawn in front of the Griffith Observatory, expertly dodging tourists and families and other children as she runs full-sprint towards the western side staircase.  A fraction of a second later, eighteen-year-old Jesse is rushing after her, hollering, “NOT FAIR, GETTIN’ A HEAD START LIKE THAT -”_

_“Hey, slow down, you two -” Jack starts to snap after them, but the two of them are quickly out of earshot.  Jack rattles off a stream of gruff swears before he too runs after them, calling out hoarsely, “USE YOUR MANNERS -”_

_“...You are not going to run after them?” Mei asks Gabriel with a sly giggle, peeking up at him from the left with a mischievous grin.  Gabriel snorts, pulling his hood a little tighter around his head as he grins, “I had to drive everyone around all day - this is my time to relax.”_

_“If you call this ‘relaxing,’ I dread to think of what you consider fun,” the scientist teases him, and Gabriel gives her a gentle, playful shove against her shoulder, rasping out, “I don’t want to hear that from you of all people, blizzard-chaser.”_

_Mei laughs brightly, and the two of them continue their slow, ambling stroll towards the observatory.  There’s a quiet calm about them, even as they can distantly hear Fareeha’s taunts and Jesse’s hollerin’ and Jack’s chidings.  But there is no rush, there is no worry._

_Not anymore._

_They’re just about to reach the side stairs when Mei asks him kindly, “...Can I see it?”_

_Gabriel pauses, assessing her coolly in the dim lighting of the burnished, tarnished spotlights along the white-painted concrete walls.  Mei’s face is open and honest, wide and trusting, and Gabriel exhales -_

_Before tugging off his left glove, as he murmurs softly, the sweetest smile to his words, “Don’t tell anyone, okay?”_

_“I’m great at keeping secrets!” Mei grins, and Gabriel smirks before holding out his left hand.  There’s the barest wisp of gloved heat rising off of it in the chill, winter air, but as he twists it a little bit more in the burnished, tarnished lighting_

_The ring on his fourth finger catches a glint of the gilded glow._

_“Ooooh,” Mei cooes, tugging at his hand, pulling it a little closer to her face so she can see it better in the half-glow.  The chips of tealed green jade glimmer like seastarred veins in the natural breaks in the mahogany wood, and Gabriel feels another swelling tide of overwhelming happiness wash through him at just the sight._

_“It looks better than the mock-ups Jack showed me,” Mei says with bubbly excitement, before she turns a massive, sunshine-bright grin up at him, saying with genuine joy:_

_“Congratulations, Gabriel Reyes-Morrison!”_

_“Thank you, Zhou Mei-ling,” Gabriel replies and suddenly he’s grinning back, his smile full and fulfilling, feeling like he’s captured the sun in his chest as flickers of gilded-gold warmth radiate through him.  Mei pats his hand gently, offering happily, “Let me know if you need help picking a ring for him.”_

_And then she adds with a mischievous smirk, “I know his ring size.”_

_“I should’ve known you were in on this,” Gabriel mocks her with a teasing playfulness.  He retracts his hand, easing the glove back on as he asks with slow, genuine curiosity, “How did you get_ my _ring size?  There’s no way Jack figured this out on his own.”_

_“You remember that day a few months ago when Fareeha and I were painting your nails?” Mei reminds him with a wicked smile, which Gabriel reflects back to her as he grumbles, “Of course - leave it to Jack to have recruited you for his mission that far in advance.”_

_“Are you going to recruit me for the Intelligence and Tactical Operations Division now?” Mei teases him.  Gabriel’s eyebrows shoot to the moon as he titters, partially chiding, partially impressed, “Of course you know about that too.  That’s not official news yet, Zhou.”_

_“That makes me an even better spy, right?” she giggles, causing Gabriel to roll his eyes before he lightly bumps his elbow against her shoulder.  Mei beams again, gesturing to the side stairs, and just as Gabriel is about to turn to head up to them -_

_He pauses._

_“...Gabriel?” Mei asks him gently, and Gabriel looks at her with a soft, almost bittersweet expression.  Mei frowns sweetly, murmuring slowly, “Commander Reyes, what’s wrong?”_

_“...This isn’t fair of me to ask you, mei mei,” Gabriel says to her quietly, with a tender ache to his tone._

_But he has to ask._

_To her credit, Mei does not joke around, does not tease him for the sudden shift in mood.  She looks at him with a serious earnestness, and Gabriel -_

_He knows he’s doing the right thing._

_“This isn’t fair, but I need to ask anyways,” he mutters, before exhaling with the weight of a thousand fallen stars:_

_“...If something ever happens to me...will you help him?”_

_Mei’s warm, sugar-brown eyes search his face for a long, almost unbearable moment, before she finally nods:_

_“...Yes, Gabriel.  I promise to help him.”_

Jack shifts against him, moving even closer, and Gabriel’s breath hitches slightly as he feels warm lips and the barest brush of scruff press to his jaw, just below his left ear.  Jack’s words are whispered to him in the slow-moving, sweeping swell of stardust:

“ _Estoy contigo, Gabriel_ \- _para siempre_.”

And now

So much of the city of fallen stars and the sea of angels is unchanged, from the view at the top nine years later.

But he has gained Jack’s hand in his, Jack’s fingers and Jack’s love entwined with his.

And that is worth destroying every apocalypse and bleeding out every fallen star for.

Gabriel tilts his head, adjusting to press his own lips against Jack’s smile as he murmurs back, as warm as the glow of one-hundred-thousand streetlamp stars:

“ _Y yo, contigo, Jack - para siempre._ ”

\---------

 

_I'd never fall in love with someone else again_

_If I could only taste your lips and this adrenaline_

_I'd never leave here, never leave your bed_

_I'd never leave here, never leave your bed_

 

_I can't stand it when you're not with me_

_I can't stand it, I fall at your feet_

_You're not the answer, but I can't stand to be alone_

 

_Alone_

 

\---------

**Segador y Soldado: California King**

July 6, 2053: 10:47 p.m. - a hotel in Los Angeles, California

 

Jack sighs as he opens the door, stream briefly drifting tendrils after him as he goes from the shower-heated bathroom to the main hotel room - a fairly luxurious place of deep, reddish wood inlaid into wrought iron and slick granite, rustic cut with industrial, making it unsurprising that Gabriel had picked it in advance...but the almost overdone classiness and the size of the massive, iron-and-wood bed alone had made Jack question the per night cost with a raised eyebrow and a skeptical tone.

“It’s our first block leave in years,” Gabriel had retorted, as he had headed to the bathroom to take his shower before Jack’s.  His partner had smirked at him, saying wryly, “We’re allowed to at least _pretend_ we’re high class at times.” before he’d shut the door with a knowing grin.

Jack shivers slightly as his shower-warmed skin hits the chillier, conditioned air of the bedroom, adjusting his boxer briefs a little as he rumbles, “Hey, Gabe - I didn’t really prep much because I didn’t know what you felt like…doing...”

His words catch in his throat as he finally settles his gaze on Gabriel, slung out on the bed, flicking a mischievous, smug look towards Jack, a charming, handsome smirk on his regal face, the look smokily hazy and perfectly gorgeous on him.  He’s wearing one of Jack’s patterned button ups, which should look ridiculous except he’s left it open, exposing his deep, rich skin and thick muscles.  The only other things he has on are Jack’s dog tags hanging loose around his neck, and a pair of Jack’s black boxer briefs, the fabric stretched tight over those cut hips -

and the hand that’s slipped under them, lazily stroking at himself.

Jack’s breath hitches at the sight of Gabriel lightly tugging at himself, those perfect light-dark eyes, like obsidian smoke engulfing raw, heated sunshine, dragging down Jack’s body with blatant _want_ dripping in his gaze.

Already, Jack feels the low burn of desire swoop through him, his cock twitching a little.

“...I see you started without me,” Jack chuckles weakly, his voice cracking slightly as he unroots himself from the spot by the bathroom and eases himself towards the bed.  The pulses of aching _need_ that Gabriel’s been building in himself shudder and shake slightly at the rumbles of dark, deadly desire that thread Jack’s words, stronger shivers striking through his groin and his mostly-hard cock as Jack’s blue eyes roam over him in the dull, gilded half-lighting of the room.

“...I put on your shirt and started thinking of you,” Gabriel grins roguishly, stroking at himself as Jack comes to stand by the edge of the massive king bed.  Gabriel bites at his lower lip as Jack watches him intensely, the storm in his eyes beginning to roll, and Gabriel chuckles with a low, liquid laugh, “Started thinking of all the things I want to do to you…”

“How surprising - our sexts the last two weeks weren’t enough for you?” Jack asks with a wry, teasing grin, which Gabriel reflects right back at him as he murmurs coyly, “Shockingly, they backfired.  Made me only want to do more.”

“We have very different definitions of ‘backfire,’ then,” Jack laughs with a low, deep ache to the edges of his words.  Finally, for the first time since he’s left the bathroom, Jack realizes there’s something on the bed, just past Gabriel in the peripherals of his gaze, and he flicks his focus to it when -

Jack feels his breath catch in his throat.

There’s a bottle of lube, nothing out of the ordinary, but next to it, standing out stark against the white bedsheets -

Is a deeply dyed, rich red spun silk rope.

Gabriel’s smug, confident grin only deepens as he watches Jack’s eyes go wide over the sight of the rope, a jolt of lightning bolt pleasure snapping through his groin.  He strokes slightly harder, as Jack’s stormclouded gaze returns to his face, the intensity in that raw, deep blue having only multiplied with the implications.  Gabriel smirks at him, taunting him darkly as he holds out his left hand to Jack:

“Come here - let me show you what I’ve been thinking of.”

Jack’s hand is immediately in his, and Gabriel helps pull him in closer as Jack slides onto the bed.  In a fraction of a second, Jack looms over him, and Gabriel wraps both arms around his shoulders, rising slightly to meet Jack halfway -

Their kiss is furious, flash fire caught in a storm, heated and deep, filled with a burning longing and a swelling ache - Jack bites and nips at Gabriel’s lower lip, making Gabriel groan openly against his mouth.  Jack slides in against him, pressing himself right up along Gabriel’s left side, his right arm supporting him as his left hand drifts across Gabriel’s gilded, warm skin - pushing some of the fabric of his own shirt away, his fingers tracing down curves of pecs, down to his abs, down to the waistband of his own boxer briefs around Gabriel’s hips.

But suddenly, Gabriel’s right hand is grabbing his wrist, stopping him just on the edge of the waistband.  Jack freezes slightly in his momentary confusion, until he feels Gabriel’s left fingers wind through his hair and pull gently, sending out small streaks of perfect, blissful pain across his scalp.

“Holy shit,” Jack hisses as Gabriel grins at him, eyes flashing like liquid smoke as he teases Jack coyly, “Be patient, Jack - you’ll get your chance when I want to give it to you.”

“...Oh, _damn_ ,” Jack cracks lowly as Gabriel rises, pushing him back, shifting them until Jack is lying flat on the bed, Gabriel confidently straddling his hips, Gabriel’s left hand still in his hair, his right pinning Jack’s left wrist to the sheets.  Gabriel gives him the most arrogant, wicked, beautiful smirk Jack has even seen on him, before rolling his hips down and grinding his stiff cock and the swell of his ass against Jack’s groin.  Lightning streaks of pleasure flash and thunder and snap through Jack, shivery shocks that make him groan out, “Oh holy shit, Gabe -”

“I missed you, Jack,” Gabriel chuckles - his tone caught between smoky, dense whispers and aching, burning longing - as he leans in across Jack’s torso, slotting his hard cock against Jack’s, feeling it grow stiffer and thicker by the second as he presses against his partner.  Gabriel delights in how Jack’s eyes light up over his words, over the feeling of their heated skin brushing against each other, over how their pleasure is already building between them, and he slips his lips against Jack’s, exhaling slowly, “Missed you to the point where nothing was satisfying without you.”

“...Sounds like I need to plan these breaks more often,” Jack tries to joke, but the words are weak and breathless even to him - Gabriel is radiant like this, giving off a brilliant, stunning intensity like light shimmering through thin flakes of obsidian, a smoky, beautiful elegance that burns like fire, and Jack -

Jack has always loved feeling Gabriel’s burn.

Jack lifts his right hand, caressing the side of Gabriel’s face as Gabriel murmurs coy, heated words against Jack’s lips, nipping lightly with each breath, “Missed hearing your voice, missed feeling your hands on me, missed touching you -”

Pleasure arcs and jolts through Gabriel as Jack rises, grinding his hips and his hard, stiff cock against Gabriel’s, as Jack presses his deep, needy kisses to Gabriel’s lips and words.  Gabriel shudders slightly, feeling his desperation build, his deep, aching, unending desire just to let Jack hold him down and fuck him hard and steady and furiously into the mattress, his cock twitching slightly at the thought alone.

And Gabriel _has_ truly, genuinely missed Jack - missed feeling Jack’s lips on his skin, missed hearing Jack’s hoarse voice crack and break and laugh and sing, missed seeing the range of Jack’s expressions, missed feeling Jack’s powerful confidence steady Gabriel’s thoughts and burn Gabriel’s core.

But more than anything else

Gabriel has truly, genuinely missed _Jack_.

“Missed kissing you, missed feeling you fuck me to the edge,” Gabriel rumbles, biting a little harder in between each word, enjoying how the small bites and heated teases cause Jack to shudder and gasp beneath him, cause Jack’s cock to twitch, cause Jack’s hips to rise a little bit higher, a little bit harder as he grinds back against Gabriel.  Jack’s fingers scratch and scrape lightly across Gabriel’s left cheek and Gabriel’s left hand goes to entwine around them, even as he groans heavily against Jack’s lips, “Missed seeing you fall apart, missed feeling you come undone inside me -”

“ _Holy hell, Gabriel_ ,” Jack practically chokes on his air as Gabriel’s words burn against his lips, their kisses hot and melting with deep, furious ache, as Gabriel’s heavy cock rubs and rolls against Jack’s.  There’s a moment of nothing but long, dense kisses and shallow breaths in between and the fierce, hard pulse of pleasure between them, until Jack breaks them apart, pleading, almost begging with urgency:

“Please, Gabriel, _please_ \- tell me what you want, I’ll do anything - you want me to tie you up?”

Gabriel gives him that same, perfect, smug smirk again, leaning back just a bit more to tilt his head as he says with a deep ripple to his words:

“Absolutely...not.”

Jack’s mind breaks a little beneath the haze of his desire and he briefly has a fraction of a second to mutter “what” before -

Gabriel’s left hand rips Jack’s right away from his face, as his right hand moves Jack’s left - Gabriel snaps both of Jack’s hands above his head, pinning them there, close to the iron bars of the bedframe.  Gabriel revels in the shock that blooms across Jack’s face - a moment of clarity in the daze of desire - before he shifts his hands, using his right to lock Jack’s wrists there as his left reaches out -

Jack watches in breathless awe and liquid desire as Gabriel draws the rope in.  As he pulls the silk cord to their hands above Jack’s head, Gabriel gives him that wonderful, wicked look again, whispering with quiet, smoky confidence, “I want you to do _nothing_ , and I want that to _ruin_ you.”

Jack’s breath catches in his throat.

Gabriel grins as his deft fingers work the rope, threading around the bar between Jack’s hands a few times before he tugs the ends to Jack’s wrists.  Gabriel’s always been skilled with his hands, even under the haze of desire ( _especially_ under the haze of desire), and he winds the rope around Jack’s wrists with perfect tautness - tight enough that the friction won’t burn, but soft enough that it won’t cut off Jack’s circulation.  With all his practice, the knots are instinctual, and Gabriel leans it a little closer, grinding down on Jack’s wonderful, hard cock as Jack’s eyes go wide in stunned wonder.

“How does that feel?” Gabriel asks, almost gently, but still roguishly confident.  Jack’s hands strain slightly as he tests the rope, but he rumbles back with broken tones, “I - it’s - feels fine -”

Gabriel admires the sight of Jack’s arms tugging at the cord, admires the way Jack’s deep blue eyes never leave his face, admires the small shiver that ripples through Jack as Gabriel looks back at him, grinning as he says with a steady, smoky richness, “I want to make this slow and miserable for you - can I?”

The look of delicious, almost delirious desperation and desire on Jack’s face suits him _perfectly_.

“Oh god, Gabriel, please, yes, please -” Jack groans, his low, deep voice cracking with needy, broken _want_ , and another spike of pleasure bursts through Gabriel at the sound, his cock twitching.  He grinds it against Jack’s, relishing in how thick and full Jack’s is, delighting in how the motion sends another shudder through Jack’s body, his wrists snapping the rope taut as his arms struggle reflexively.

Gabriel smirks, laughing roughly as he hums with a coy, confident simmer:

“I want you to love and hate every second.  I want you to lose your mind as you watch.  I want you to beg for me, Jack.”

Jack groans a little, pleasure pulsing through him with each word, with each feeling of the silk cords tightening around his wrists, locking his arms away.  His eyes rake over Gabriel’s smirk, the glimmer of smoky lust in Gabriel’s eyes, the way Gabriel’s body arcs over his.  He bites at his lower lip, hissing a little as Gabriel leans in just close enough to breathe across his lips, murmuring with that perfect, dripping _ache_ to his words:

“Show me how badly you missed me, Jack.”

“...Yes sir,” Jack manages to say back in breaking, hoarse tones.  He leans in closer, trying to claim one last kiss, but Gabriel pulls back a little bit more, his smirk growing wider, more infectious as his eyes light up with a brilliant gleam.  Jack feels a flicker of the burn melt and twist inside his groin, right behind his cock, at the smug, teasing expression on Gabriel’s face, followed a fraction of a second later by Gabriel’s left fingers winding back into Jack’s hair.  Jack moans lowly as they pull, little snaps of pleasurable pain streaking across his scalp, and Gabriel dives to the exposed part of Jack’s neck and the underside of his jaw, kissing and sucking and nipping, teasing the skin there to a flushed heated warmth.

“ _Gabe_ ,” Jack groans, as pleasure melts through him from where Gabriel scrapes his teeth across his jaw and where Gabriel grinds his hard cock against Jack’s, and _fuck_ , it feels so good, it feels so right, he just wants to pull Gabriel even closer and hold those perfect hips down -

Jack’s hands won’t move.

In the steady hum of desire slow-burning in his mind, Jack tries to lift his arms to pull them to Gabriel’s hips but they won’t move, there’s the snap and slide of soft braids of silk holding them firmly away, above his head, and _fuck_ , he’s _already_ forgotten that he’s tied down.  A low ripple of frustration drips through him and he can practically _feel_ Gabriel smirk against the column of his neck as he mutters in smug, dulcet whispers against Jack’s skin, “Oh, _Jack_ , you make this so much _fun_ -”

“Glad...glad you’re getting a kick out of this - _fuck_ ,” Jack starts to tease back, but his words choke off into a low, breathless swear as Gabriel shifts, kissing briefly along the ball chain around his neck, nipping hard at Jack’s left collarbone as he drags his fingernails down the sides of Jack’s torso, just strong enough to leave scratch marks and shivery fission bumps as Jack shudders.  Pleasure rolls through him and Jack feels another throbbing pang burst in his groin and spike through his already aching cock.

“Oh, I’m enjoying myself _immensely_ ,” Gabriel murmurs against Jack’s heaving chest, trailing feverish kisses and teasing nips down Jack’s skin as his hands reach Jack’s hips, digging in around the cut edges and tense muscles there.  Jack struggles briefly to rise and grind his cock against Gabriel’s body, but Gabriel forces him down, pushing Jack’s lower half back into the blankets and mattress, shifting back more onto his knees even as he continues to press his lips across Jack’s torso.

Gabriel slinks himself back a bit more, gliding himself down towards Jack’s hips, biting at his lower lip as he smirks, raking his eyes over Jack’s body, how it shudders between strains of tense, simmering pleasure and heaves of panting, broken relaxation.  Jack’s gaze is already misted over, heavy with a strange, piercing focus that sends a bolt of desire through Gabriel again, and he grins even wider as Jack locks eyes with him.  Gabriel presses his smirk to the edge of Jack’s right hipbone, kissing hard and biting lightly, his focus never leaving Jack’s face, angled up from the pillows, relishing in the look of fierce pleasure that overwhelms Jack, causing him to wince and heave again.

“Gabriel, _holy shit_ ,” Jack gasps as Gabriel’s teeth scrape across his skin with just enough pressure to make the roughness _wonderful_ , his hips shaking and surging to rise, to get even closer, but Gabriel’s hands lock him down, fingernails cutting in hard just above his waistband.  There’s another spike of delicious, twisting tease that floods through him, and Jack tries to fight it, but the instinct to run his own fingers over Gabriel’s buzzed scalp is so deeply ingrained in him, so deeply reflexive that his wrists pull at the rope anyways, his fingers tense with nothing to grip -

Gabriel flashes another wide, highly satisfied grin as he watches Jack shake, before slowly, deliberately shifting his head, moving to place bruising kisses and heated bites along Jack’s other hipbone, his fingers slipping beneath the waistband of Jack’s boxer briefs for the first time.  There’s a careful, calculated avoidance of the bulge of Jack’s heavy, hard cock, so very close and so incredibly tantalizing, but Gabriel focuses on drawing out the sweet, honeyed agony, muttering with a low, raspy chuckle against Jack’s skin, “So good to hear you moan my name again, Jack.”

“Gabe, _fuck_ ,” Jack exhales as Gabriel’s hands slowly shift the waistband, moving it down down down, freeing his aching, tense cock from the restriction of the cotton fabric, and _shit_ , he knew he’d missed Gabriel, but even he’s loosely surprised to see that the head of his dick is smeared with leaking wetness.  He watches breathless, whole body burning for Gabriel, as Gabriel finally tilts his head towards it, those gorgeous, deep, smoked-sun eyes alighting as they finally see Jack’s cock, thick and stiff and _aching_ just for him.  Gabriel’s hands drag his boxer briefs to rest around his thighs, as Gabriel’s gaze lingers long and longingly over Jack’s hard dick - Gabriel’s close, so close, Jack can _feel_ puffs of his heated breath across the skin of his cock, and a ribbon of electric thrill snaps through him at the feeling.

Gabriel flicks that perfect, deadly gaze back to Jack’s face, smirking smugly, wickedly - the look is everything Jack loves and desires about him but -

Gabriel chuckles darkly, before pressing more dense, heavy kisses to the creases of skin between Jack’s left hip and thigh, his hands pushing the boxer briefs down to Jack’s knees and calves in one fast sweep.  Jack groans, his head falling back against the pillow as Gabriel’s lips - so miserably, wonderfully close to his throbbing, twitching cock - continue to burn melting, agonizingly sweet kisses to the skin across his hips and upper thighs.

“ _Gabriel, please_ ,” Jack mutters, heaving and panting, wishing he could use his fingers to grip Gabriel’s head and urge him to where he needs and wants and desires Gabriel’s hot, wet kisses the most, wishing he could grip Gabriel’s hands and guide them to where he needs and wants and desires their perfect, pressuring touches the most.  A snap and a shiver of pleasure shakes through Jack’s groin, where a dense, furious ache is surging and struggling, building into a heady, burning storm that pulses and throbs.

“‘Please’ _what_ , Jack?” Gabriel taunts him, his own cock throbbing at the unrepentant ache and desperation breaking through Jack’s words and groans and breaths, before he shifts slightly, sliding his right hand under Jack’s left thigh, getting him to lift it a little, so that Gabriel can nip and kiss at the skin there.  Jack gasps again, and Gabriel delights at how his hands shake, the muscles in his arms bulging as they strain against the rope.  Jack lifts his head, staring at Gabriel, those blue eyes marbled with broken want and hazy desire, as Jack pleads in that wonderful low storm of his voice, “Please, Gabriel, _please_ , fuck, touch me, _please_ -”

“You can do better than that, Jack - let me hear you beg for it,” Gabriel smirks, using his left hand to push Jack’s right thigh further away, spreading his legs farther apart.  Gabriel dips his head again, licking and nipping at the angle between Jack’s left thigh and the base of his groin, avoiding Jack’s dripping, hard cock (no matter how perfect it looks, long and thick and full, just begging for Gabriel’s attention) and skipping past the darker tuffs of hair around the tender skin of his balls.  Gabriel rakes his left fingernails down Jack’s right thigh, kissing and sucking hard across his left thigh, and Jack moans again, his tone starting to crack into a true beg, “Please, Gabe, please, fuck me, _please_ , I want you to touch me - I just need to feel _you_ , Gabriel, _please, por favor, Gabi_ -”

“See?  I knew you could do better,” Gabriel chuckles, twisting his head to press a deep, hot kiss to the base of Jack’s cock and pleasure and sweet relief floods through Jack.  He gasps, rolling his hips slightly as more hot, furious warmth melts through him, his ache burning and storming, as Gabriel slowly but steadily moves his lips, planting small kisses and licking slim stripes up the shaft of Jack’s cock.  Gabriel’s left hand grips at the base as he moves, finally touching and kissing the silky soft skin - stretched over tense, hard muscle - that he’s been craving.  Jack’s head rolls back, his whole body arching into the touch, as he calls out with broken, hoarse relief, “ _Fuck_ , Gabriel, _holy shit_ , yes, keep going, _please_ -”

Pleasure pulses through Gabriel at the sound of Jack’s voice, cracking and fraying at the edges with want and need, and he shudders faintly, breaking his own rules a little, making his kisses faster and stronger, urging his lips up the length of Jack’s perfect hardness.  He pauses as he reaches the head, his dark, furious ache wanting nothing more than to suck down on the whole thing, take Jack’s velvety smooth, thickly strong cock as far down as he can go, shower it with wet, hot desire and pressure.

But Gabriel stops himself.

He scowls and then smirks as Jack lifts his head, those beautiful blue eyes broken into a delirious cloudiness, before he leans in and licks long and slow at the head of Jack’s cock - Jack flops back against the pillows, moaning, “God, Gabriel, _yes_ , oh fuck, _please_ , Gabe -”  Jack’s thighs shake and shudder, squeezing around Gabriel’s shoulders and Gabriel chuckles, before wrapping his lips around the tip of Jack’s dick and sucking softly, shallowly, hardly enough to cause anything more than the faintest grip of wet pressure.

Jack groans, as the head of his cock sinks a short, small ways into Gabriel’s mouth, the slick heat burning him at an almost maddeningly low ache.  His splintering mind is struggling between needing more and trying to stay controlled, his hips shaking slightly as they try to rise, just a little, just to get more of Gabriel’s sweet, perfect heat around him, but Gabriel is ready for him, his left hand forcing Jack’s hips back down before they even truly start to tense, and _fuck_ , Gabriel is close, so close, but it’s not enough, Jack wants to feel him, Jack wants to touch him, Jack wants to cause Gabriel to moan and shout and come undone -

Gabriel relishes in the bitter, saltiness of Jack’s flavor, in the smooth heat and shuddering strength of Jack’s hardness in his mouth, and he chuckles, a throaty hum around the head of Jack’s cock - the vibrations cause ripples of pleasure through Jack, making him shiver again - and, a fraction of a second later, Gabriel indulges him.

His tongue slips up, pressuring a long, hard lick against the thick cockhead in his mouth, teasing at the small slit slightly and -

Jack’s reaction is immediate.

His whole body bucks, snapping taut like a wire, thighs squeezing hard around Gabriel’s shoulders, his back arching, his arms tugging and straining the silk cord, his head sinking back against the plush pillows, his voice shouting hoarse, broken growls and groans, “ _Joder, mierda_ , Gabriel, _Gabriel_ , _holy shit_ , _fuuuuuck_ \- oh, god damn, Gabe, you feel so _good,_ _more please, please_ -”

Gabriel smirks again, giving in and sucking harder, causing pleasure to flood like liquid fire through Jack, bolts of it snapping into his groin, shooting up his spine - his body shudders at the sweet relief of Gabriel’s hot, dense, wet pressure, full and fulfilling against the throb and the ache in Jack’s cock, Gabriel’s left fingers carding through the thick, wiry hair, scratching lightly at the base.  And just as Jack can feel the pressure of pleasure starting to really roll and grind inside him -

Gabriel pulls his mouth off of Jack’s cock.

Jack freezes for a second, every part of his body tense before he flicks a look of utter, shattered shock at Gabriel, who is grinning with a regal smugness at him, murmuring with a dark, teasing lilt, “I could suck you off for hours, Jack -”

“Oh Gabriel, _fuck_ ,” Jack starts to swear, his gaze getting a little more frustrated, his wrists tugging at the rope, and Gabriel’s grin only deepens, his obsidian, gold-flaked eyes glinting with a vicious, vivid desire as he taunts, “But it’s only fun when I feel your hands on me when I do it.”

“...What,” Jack mutters in an empty, hollow tone, still feeling his pleasure burn right up to the edges of his mind.  He’s not _upset_ , never upset with Gabriel, but there’s something that starts to shift inside him - an intensity that begins to roil, mixing with the pleasure pushed right up against his boundaries of his sense of self and -

“I love when I feel your hands on me,” Gabriel continues, unendingly proud of himself.  He rises, shifting to his knees, tugging Jack’s shirt off his shoulders with a surprising efficiency, but his smug, brash confidence makes the motion _frustratingly charming_ , and Jack watches as Gabriel grins roguishly, “I love feeling your fingers make scratches in my skin.”

“...Are...are you going to untie me?” Jack asks weakly, and no, he’s not _hoping_ , but he won’t deny a small ripple of relief runs through him at the thought - he can touch Gabriel again, he can hold him, can use his fingers to stroke Gabriel to completion or open him up and make him hot and shivery and _ready_ for Jack to fill him -

But Gabriel just smirks even _wider_ and Jack feels that intensity burn a little hotter and -

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, soldier,” Gabriel mutters with a dark, smoky twist to his tone - pleasure lightnings through Jack at the mere sound of his perfect husky voice - and Gabriel tilts his head coyly, his hands tracing down his own body to where the waistband of Jack’s black boxer briefs hug his hips, Gabriel’s hard, thick cock making a clear-cut outline in the fabric.

Jack’s eyes go wide with utter _desire_ as Gabriel’s fingers slip beneath the band.

“You don’t get to touch yet, Jack,” Gabriel teases him with a heady, hazy whisper, slowly slipping the boxer briefs down his hips, steadily revealing that perfect, full, stiff cock - skin smooth and soft, a deep thickness with the rich tone of Gabriel’s skin that Jack loves, that Jack would shower with thousands of kisses and perfectly-pressured touches if he _could_ -

Gabriel delights in how Jack’s sea-deep eyes focus in on his slow reveal, how they watch him show himself with enraptured desire, how Jack’s breath rises and falls with steady, thinly-controlled tension, how his fingers flex and shake.  Gabriel shifts, easing the underwear off his thighs, down to his knees, and manages to move himself forward a bit as he tugs them off, Jack’s gaze flicking up and down his body with a greedy draw.

Gabriel smirks, guiding himself forward, his hands stretching to move Jack’s legs closer again, and he lifts himself over them, settling back on his knees to straddle Jack just over his kiss-marked, nail-scratched thighs.  

Jack’s breath hitches in his chest - Gabriel’s cock is close, _so close_ to his own, the heads passing within an inch or two of each other, and another strike of pleasure shudders through Jack at the sight of it - at the sight of _him_ , perfect and proud, like smoke spun from gilded silk, a thin, cloudy obsidian flaked with gold and bronze, radiant even under the half-lighting of the room, a hazy huskiness that enthralls Jack in everything he does and -

Gabriel tilts a sly, devilish, charming smirk down at him, as if seeing right through Jack, and - he won’t lie - Jack almost _whimpers_ at the sight.

Gabriel does his best to steady his breathing - Jack is starting to unravel beneath him, just at the mere sight of him, and _god_ , the pleasure that pulses through Gabriel from just the look of heady, almost broken, almost lost desperation and desire in Jack’s eyes is enough to push Gabriel right up to the edge of the fall alone, but he steels himself, drawing himself forward, leaning over Jack’s body, carefully avoiding letting their cocks touch, leveling that smirk at Jack, whose dark, almost delirious eyes follow him without hesitation.  Gabriel reaches out his left hand, moving past Jack to the lube; he grips the bottle and then rises again, popping the cap with ease.

Jack’s eyes - a new, dark, fierce focus starting to form - never leave him, flicking between Gabriel’s confident, almost arrogant smirk and his confident, almost arrogant cock, dragging down all the spaces between them as Gabriel tilts the bottle over his hard, aching dick.

He drizzles some of the gel on it before capping it again and dropping it onto the sheets by Jack’s right hip - Jack finds himself utterly breathless, enraptured by the slick, easy way Gabriel moves himself, adjusting just a little before his right hand drifts to that perfect, wonderful cock and -

Gabriel grins a deep, cocksure smirk at Jack, and then wraps his right hand around himself.

He starts to stroke.

The almost lazy, almost syrupy pleasure that’s been sitting in Gabriel’s groin since Jack started his shower stirs and moves, springing back into life almost immediately as Gabriel begins to touch himself again.  He knows, of course, exactly how to pleasure himself - this is nothing new - but the feeling surges to a greater, more desirous fullness as he looks down at Jack, drawing his gaze over that long, thick, twitching cock, still wet with Gabriel’s own kisses and licks, up across Jack’s tense abdomen, over his pecs, to Gabriel’s own dog tags around his neck, up to Jack’s face, completely open and almost utterly _broken_ with shock and _a deep, longing, furious hunger._

And then up to where Jack’s wrists are _fighting_ the rope around them.

A tense, throbbing _ache_ floods through Gabriel at the sight of Jack struggling against himself, fighting every restraint just to get the chance to touch him, and Gabriel _groans_ , stroking harder, adding more slick, heated pressure to his cock, now dripping with his desire as he moans, “Oh, _Jack_ , you look so good like this -”

“ _Gabriel_ ,” Jack half-seethes, half-begs, his entire existence starting to sharpen into a single-minded focus - Gabriel, how _good_ he looks as he touches himself, how _perfect_ the pleasure is that rolls across his face, how _incredible_ the shudders that start to shake his body are -

How Jack would give anything - _do anything_ \- to join in: to have _his hands_ wrapped around Gabriel’s hard, silky cock, to have _his lips_ pressed against Gabriel’s neck, to have _his skin_ covered in Gabriel’s scratches.

He wants he wants he wants to grind his palms against the head of Gabriel’s dripping cock, to rub his fingers up that solid length, to pull it deep into his mouth and have Gabriel thrust into him hard and fast and furious as Gabriel’s fingers grip and twist in his hair, to suck down and tease out every last sticky, hot drop of Gabriel’s pleasure.  Jack’s own needy, furious pleasure surges through him, causing his whole body to tense and strain, struggling between trying to move his own leaking cock closer to where Gabriel is stroking his and trying to pull himself out of the silk binds around his wrists, but the knots hold fast and Gabriel -

Gabriel resists sharing himself.

He’d love nothing more than to line himself up against Jack’s cock and stroke them together, rub them together, letting their hard, hot desires grind and pressure against each other.  There’s a tense, relentless part of Gabriel, surging with the boiling, white-hot pleasure starting to shudder through him, that wants to skip the whole build up entirely, to work himself open to the bare minimum and sink himself down on Jack’s long, thick cock, to give in and ride him until they both come utterly undone inside and outside each other, full and fulfilled together - fucking hell, the thought of it alone causes a spike to surge through him, shocking his cock and his groin and his spine like melting lightning.

But Gabriel resists breaking himself.

Instead, he grinds harder into his own grip, thrusting and stroking at the same time, pleasure roiling through him as he watches a deep, storm-rushed intensity darken Jack’s gaze, biting at his lower lip as he builds his own edge and ache in his throbbing, leaking cock, the lube making it easy to roll that perfectly fast, perfectly slick pressure across it.  Gabriel leans back, rising a little further on his knees, rocking his hips forward into the cup of his hand, moaning out, “Jack, _Jack_ \- fuck, Jack, you look so good when you’re desperate for me -”

“Gabriel, _please_ -” Jack half-gasps, half-rumbles, trying to surge forward, his arms struggling against the binds - he could probably snap them, he’s strong enough, he knows he is - his desire flooding through him like a hurricane, threatening to pull him into a raging undercurrent, thoughts furious and fierce, focused on Gabriel, only on Gabriel - on touching him, on teasing him, on making him fall apart, weak and melted and blissfully happy in his hands, on thrusting his aching, shuddering cock deep inside him, on fucking him hard and fast and thoroughly until Gabriel comes apart again and again and again -

“That’s it, Jack,” Gabriel heaves, stroking himself even harder, hotter, faster as Jack writhes beneath him, trying to get closer.  Gabriel feels the heated, pulsing edge coming closer, burning liquid fire through his nerves, pleasure making him shake and shiver as Jack’s dark, thunderous gaze rakes over him, hot and dense and penetrating - he leans forward, urging Jack on in raspy, breaking tones, “Talk to me, Jack - tell me what you want -”

“Dammit, Gabriel,” Jack hisses, somehow boiling both in pleasure and fury at the sight of Gabriel indulging himself without him - without his hands on him, without his mouth around him, without his cock inside him.  The ache inside him is deep and roaring, begging begging begging to be released, wanting wanting wanting to share in Gabriel’s pleasure, to be the one to push him over but -

“Fuck, Gabe, please - _let me touch you_ ,” Jack groans, watching intensely at how his words seem to wash another wave of ecstasy over Gabriel’s perfect, open face.  Jack grits his teeth, wrists straining a little further, as he growls, “Fuck, Gabriel, you look so good, let me help, please, _I want to feel you_ -”

Gabriel shudders _hard_ , feeling his edge press right up against his boundaries, the pleasure starting to burn white hot and _perfect_ at the sound of Jack’s low, fraying voice coaxing and begging him through it.  He strokes faster, leaning forward slightly, tilting his throbbing, dripping cock right over Jack’s, as Jack moans out, “Please, _let me see you come, Gabe,_ god, I want to watch you -”

At the words, Gabriel feels himself slip.

The perfect pressure - throbbing and pushing and pleasuring - breaks inside him - the edge is burning, melting, aching with the sound of Jack’s voice, with the sight of Jack struggling, with the feeling of Jack - so close, _so close_ , but kept far enough away to make Jack _burn_.  Gabriel’s pleasure surges out of him, releasing from his groin, through his hard, shuddering cock, spurting out white hot stickiness out onto Jack’s, still long and stiff and also _leaking_.

Jack’s breath catches in his chest at the sight of Gabriel coming undone, perfect in his ecstasy, his expression completely open and honest and gorgeous with the haze of his edge, his orgasm covering Jack’s aching, almost painful cock in thick, white, liquid heat.  Jack shudders, a furious roll of his own pleasure streaking through him at the sight and feeling, his own fall close, _so close_ , but just out of reach - it’s not enough, it’s not enough, he wants he wants he wants to _feel_ Gabriel’s edge with his, he wants he wants he wants to feel Gabriel melt with him -

He wants to _feel_ Gabriel.

Gabriel’s hips thrust forward one-two, rocking him through the last tremors, his cock shuddering out the last bits of his orgasm, as he groans and sighs - he’s not _satisfied_ , but god, _god_ , there is something intoxicating about fucking himself to completion as Jack watches, those furious blue eyes holding him through it even as Jack’s arms are tied away.  He leans back slightly, breathing hard, struggling to catch his breath and the fragments of his mind, assessing how spellbound Jack looks, how good he looks, wrists bound above his head, hair unruly from his tossing around, body covered in kiss marks and scratches, his cock coated in Gabriel’s thick, white heat.

There’s a moment of stunned silence, until Jack manages to crack out, “...Holy _shit_ , Gabriel.”

“Like the show?” Gabriel asks smugly, still panting hard but managing to smirk that deep, deadly, confident grin.  Jack gulps a little, struggling for his own words and air, muttering hoarsely, “...Fuck _yes_ I did, but...would be better to be a part of it, honestly -”

“Oh, you think it’s over?” Gabriel beams, his gaze turning smoky and heavy again, and Jack feels another pulse of that deep, fierce intensity push through him, his cock twitching slightly at the words.  Gabriel’s eyes flick to it, and then he smirks even wider, before he drops forward, resting his elbows on either side of Jack’s hips.

Jack chokes again, breathing hard as Gabriel moves his face closer to Jack’s slicked, stiff cock, that calm, calculating gaze looking it over with a deep, long and longing hunger.  Gabriel turns that gaze back to Jack’s face, locking eyes with him for a brief second -

Before his eyelids flutter shut and he licks a long, slow stripe up the side.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jack groans, shuddering and shaking at the sight of Gabriel licking both his cock and Gabriel’s own mess, shivering at how _good_ he feels, the melting, liquid heat of his tongue slick against Jack’s smooth skin and the sticky heat.  Gabriel reaches the head, opening his eyes before he grins, and then wraps his lips around the tip and pushes back down -

“ _Fuck, Gabe_ -” Jack shouts louder, as the hot, wet pleasure of Gabriel’s mouth sucks him down, engulfing him in tense, sucking heat, strong in all the right ways, relief as the ache in Jack’s cock burns down into liquid fire in his groin.  Jack’s hips rise up, thrusting his cock shallowly into Gabriel’s mouth, and Gabriel gives out a low groan, relishing in how perfect Jack’s thick, heavy cock feels, covered in his own bitter, salty liquid heat, and _fuck_ , he really could just suck Jack off into orgasm, pull and pressure with lips and tongue as Jack bucks and thrusts beneath him, shouting his name but -

Gabriel rises, using his hands to push Jack back down, Jack letting out a beautiful, fierce growl of frustration as he pulls himself off Jack’s perfect hardness.  Jack lifts his head off the pillows, giving Gabriel a dark, intense scowl, causing Gabriel to give him a teasing, sharp smirk in return, muttering dryly, “I’m not done ruining you, Jack.”

“...You weren’t lying about the ‘love and hate every second’ part,” Jack half-grumbles, half-groans back, causing Gabriel to chuckle, sliding back to his knees but -

Jack flicks his gaze back to Gabriel’s face, Gabriel’s gilded-obsidian eyes watching him intensely as he raises his right hand, still coated in bits of his liquid, white heat, to his mouth.  Jack freezes, transfixed as Gabriel gives him another dark, gorgeous smirk, before slipping his tongue out and licking away the mess on his palms.  His eyes never leave Jack’s as he trails his tongue up, around the base of his index and middle fingers, up to the tips, before he sinks them into his mouth.

“... _Holy shit_ ,” Jack gasps, another surge of pleasure spiking through him at the sight.  Gabriel grins around his fingers, sucking them in deeper, coating them in his hot, dripping saliva, delighting in how Jack’s eyes grow wide as he watches the show, his own ache starting to burn again, even though it’s only been a minute since he last came.  

Gabriel slides himself forward, moving over Jack’s cock, sucking a little longer on his fingers until he’s hovering over Jack’s abdomen.  He gives one last lick to his fingers, before he pulls them from his mouth, smiling down at Jack, who’s watching him intensely.  Gabriel shifts, spreading his legs apart a bit wider, reaching his slicked right hand down beneath him -

Jack eyes follow his hand, watching how is shifts past Gabriel’s half-hard cock, between his legs, before he turns his fingers and -

Gabriel shudders, sliding the index finger inside himself first, easing it into the tight ring of muscles.  Everything is tense for a still moment as he works the entrance open a little more, Jack giving a breathless gasp of “ _mierda, holy shit_ ” beneath him - Gabriel flicks a smirk at him, before concentrating a little harder, slipping the tip of the middle finger in too.  He pushes them in further, alternating between relaxing the tension and working deeper inside himself, discomfort lessening and dulling, switching into an undulating, growing pleasure.  A deeper ache, higher up, resting behind his cock, burns to be touched - it doesn’t _want_ his fingers, it doesn’t want _himself_ \- it wants it wants it wants the man beneath him, wants wants wants his fingers, his tongue, his long, thick cock to pressure against it, to spread the ache into a burning, melting fire that floods all of Gabriel’s senses -

But Gabriel resists his own dying, needy pleasure, pushing his fingers in deeper, deeper, opening himself bit by bit, trying to steady his breathing, but the throb starting to recover in his groin and cock is making it _miserably, sweetly_ _difficult_ -

As is the intense, boiling storm of Jack’s gaze beneath him.

Pleasure snakes and coils through Jack, pulsing in him like a sharp throb, his cock _aching_ to feel Gabriel, his eyes grinding over Gabriel’s body, watching breathlessly as Gabriel shivers between ripples of pleasure and surges of tension.  After a moment, Gabriel locks eyes with him again, moving his left hand forward, and Jack freezes for a second as Gabriel uncaps the lube bottle.  He withdraws his fingers, dripping lube liberally across them before he slips them back between his legs, pressing and twisting them inside, only this time -

Gabriel’s reaction is immediate.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Gabriel moans, pushing his slicker fingers in higher higher, deeper deeper, turning and teasing them harder harder inside himself, his own muscles clenching and rolling around them.  But it is Jack’s dense, intense gaze that causes him to shake the most, and the way Jack’s fingers flex and tense, his wrists snapping the cord to straining tautness again, and the way Jack growls in a low, deep, _aching_ grown, “Holy hell, Gabriel - _let me help, please, please, I want to touch you -_ ”

“Beg...beg a little better, Jack,” Gabriel manages to get out, but _fuck_ , he’s pushing himself too far, he’s going to break any second, the moment Jack says the right words he’s going to fall apart.  He presses his fingers in _hard_ , his whole body rolling with a weak shudder as pleasure _bursts_ through him like brilliant snaps of light and heat in his groin, his cock stiffening a little, his nerves _melting_ at the aching contact.

“ _Please, Gabriel_ -” Jack groans, watching at how Gabriel shakes as he fingerfucks himself open, at how Gabriel grinds down on his own fingers, Jack’s pleasure at the sight of it writhing and twisting in his groin and cock like a deep, furious throb, _desperate_ for Gabriel’s tight, wet heat around him, _desperate_ just to be a part of Gabriel’s pleasure, _desperate_ to fuck Gabriel to the edge -

“ _Please,_ ” Jack gasps as Gabriel turns those perfect obsidian-smoke eyes on him, Gabriel’s gaze weak and also breaking, fraying with desire and want and need, and Jack strains against _everything_ \- the rope around his wrists, the boiling, fierce intensity in his body, the unraveling control in Gabriel’s eyes - as he finally, _finally_ , begs in a deep, broken moan:

“Please, Gabriel, _please_ \- _let me feel you, let me feel you, I need to feel you, I’ll do anything, please, Gabriel_ \- let me fuck you right, let me love you, Gabriel, let me make you come apart -”

Gabriel finally snaps.

He pulls his fingers from himself, pressing himself backwards against Jack’s slicked, dripping cock, Jack groaning in sweet, utter relief at the contact of Gabriel’s thick, firm ass against him.  With a startling amount of precision, his left hand drifts back, gripping Jack’s cock - he guides it towards himself, leaning forward, angling himself a bit better, his thighs moving him back further.

There’s a brief, still moment where the head of Jack’s cock presses against the hot, tight entrance of Gabriel’s slicked muscles.

Gabriel locks eyes with Jack, smirking wickedly even through his dense haze of desire, and Jack feels a beat of pleasured tension spike through him at the look -

And then Gabriel pushes himself back onto Jack.

“ _FUUUU-UCK_ ,” Jack shouts hoarsely, the word _breaking_ in his throat, the lows caught with the highs as Gabriel’s tense, throbbing wet heat pressures around his aching, stiff, needy cock - it feels good, it feels _so good_ as pleasure strikes through him, lancing out from where Gabriel’s sweet, sticky tightness clenches around him, into his lower back and spine, _melting_ into him like nothing else.  His whole body arcs to the perfect feeling, his wrists snapping at the cord, his head flopping against the pillows as he groans, “ _Oh god, Gabriel, yes, fuck yes, I love you_ -”

Gabriel shudders, also groaning as Jack’s thick, heavy cock fills him, hard and full and hot and _perfect_ , pressuring him open in all the right ways, making his whole lower core _throb_ with pleasure.  He pushes himself back further, letting Jack’s cock grind in higher higher, deeper deeper, angling himself so that the head of it lines right up with his aching, burning pressure point -

And then he sinks himself down the rest of the way.

“ _Fuck yes, Jack_ ,” Gabriel gasps as Jack’s wonderfully hard, perfectly strong, aching thick cock grinds and rubs and presses into him, right where his steady, miserable burn has been churning for weeks and weeks it feels like, breaking the pressure there and causing pleasure to blossom and boil out through him - his cock shudders again, his back and spine feel like they’re _melting_ into the stiff, hard pressure of Jack, his hands shift forward and dig into Jack’s chest, his ass grinds down against Jack’s hips.

Gabriel rises shallowly before dropping back down again, pushing Jack’s incredible thickness as deep as it’ll go inside him, and then rises again, drops again, fucking himself down on Jack’s cock as pleasure and desire flood through him like _fire_ \- beneath him, Jack writhes, surging his hips up to match when Gabriel drops down, fucking himself up into Gabriel’s perfect, tight wetness, groaning and gasping as each roll of Gabriel’s tense muscles sends another shudder of sweet relief and ecstasy through him.  They rock together, Gabriel rising up and then fucking himself back down down down, and Jack pulling down only to fuck himself back up up up, moaning together as Gabriel’s fingernails scratch across Jack’s skin and Jack’s wrists stretch the cords taut.

Gabriel can sense his edge coming again - feels like it was merely minutes ago, but the utter intensity of finally feeling Jack shudder and pound inside him is pushing him hard and fast to the fall, his pleasure bursting and burning hotter hotter, harder harder with each thrust from Jack.  He leans forward, close to Jack’s face for the first time since he tied him, his hands grip at Jack’s chin.  Jack’s deep, storming blue eyes hold him with furious intensity, even as his hips continue to fuck that solid, hard cock deep into Gabriel’s melting core.  Gabriel manages to murmur in harsh, breaking tones against Jack’s lips, “You’re doing so _good_ , Jack - you fuck me so _good_ \- keep going, _don’t stop_ -”

Jack scowls darkly, grimacing as he struggles against his own pleasure - his edge is so close, _so incredibly close_ , now that he’s finally inside Gabriel again, now that he can finally _feel_ Gabriel again - feel his swelling, tight, slicked heat wrapped around him, the perfect pressure melting and clenching around his aching cock - he’s leaking, dripping liquid desire inside Gabriel, grinding the head of his cock against the firmer, aching spot among Gabriel’s hot muscles -

But Jack resists losing himself.

He won’t, he _refuses_ \- he wants nothing more than to _feel_ Gabriel come undone around him, wants nothing more than to _feel_ Gabriel shudder and shake to pieces as Jack’s hard pressure makes him burn and melt and fall, wants nothing more than to _feel_ Gabriel’s boundaries collapse around him as the edge claims him.  His wrists strain against the cords because he wants he wants he wants to hold Gabriel down and fuck him hard and fast and furious until Gabriel’s focus bursts into white hot pleasure.

“Gabriel - _Gabriel, please_ ,” Jack begs, shuddering as more pleasure pulses through him, burning across his nerves like the light of the sun itself, and Gabriel nips at his lips, kissing and biting and moaning heavily, the sound is the greatest thing Jack has ever heard.  Gabriel manages to crack a wry grin, even though his gaze is meltingly weak, muttering out in hoarse, smoky, breathless whispers:

“I’m going to untie you.”

Jack’s eyes go wide and his wrists snap at the cords again.  Gabriel grinds down on his cock and Jack shakes, gasping as the slick, tight heat swells and clenches around him.  Gabriel groans as Jack thrusts up into him, pushing that hard, thick cock just where he needs to, causing another flare of ecstasy to rush through Gabriel’s body.  Gabriel shudders and gasps, saying in a broken, aching murmur, “When I untie you, I want you to _wreck me_ -”

“Oh holy shit, Gabriel, yes, _anything_ -” Jack gasps back, and Gabriel leans in, begging, “I want you to fuck me all night long, Jack -”

“For you, Gabriel, _anything_ , anything you want -” Jack promises, and Gabriel moans, “Fuck me until your back is nothing but my scratches -”

“ _Holy fuck_ ,” Jack cracks, shivering from the pleasure and the words, and Gabriel smirks faintly, growling lightly, “Fuck me until you fill the ache -”

“ _Gabriel, please_ -” Jack moans, and Gabriel’s hands drift up to the cords around his wrists.  Gabriel presses his whispers against Jack’s lips, saying with a dark, heady whisper, “Fuck me until you’re all I feel.”

Gabriel loosens the knots on the rope.

In a fraction of a second, Jack’s hands are on him, everywhere on him - scratching across his scalp, gripping at his shoulders, dragging down his back, digging in around Gabriel’s hips, forcing him down down down onto Jack’s thrusting cock.  Gabriel half-gasps, half-shouts hoarsely as Jack’s cock works itself into his pleasure, grinding against his swollen, aching prostate, causing another round of pressured perfection to bloom in Gabriel, shivery sparks of lightning snapping through his nerves and veins.  Jack practically snarls, kissing and biting and groaning against Gabriel’s lips, forcing him back upright, Jack rushing after him, chasing him into the high.

They’re both in sitting positions, Gabriel sinking down into Jack’s lap, the slight adjustment causing him to slide down even further on Jack’s long, thick cock - Gabriel gasps and groans as Jack’s stiff, dripping, shuddering hardness thrusts deeper deeper into him, fucking faster faster, a fierce, almost frustrated fury claiming Jack.  His hands force Gabriel even lower, gripping at the curve of his ass and spreading him wider, pushing his cock in in in until the base of it is pressed right against Gabriel’s tight, clenching entrance.

“ _Mierda, fuuuuuck_ , Jack,” Gabriel moans as the pleasure begins to overwhelm him again, rocking and fucking into him from Jack’s cock, lightning striking like stars in his groin and ecstasy bursting in his head.  He claws his fingernails along Jack’s shoulders, raising scratches and perfect little hisses of pleasured pain out of Jack’s low, gravelly throat.  His cock is already _aching_ again, hard and throbbing with pressure, dripping again, ready to be released.

Gabriel moves his left hand down to grab at Jack’s right wrist, pulling Jack’s hand away from his ass.  Jack is hardly fazed, immediately slipping his hand between them as Gabriel urges him on, “Harder, Jack, harder - more, _more_ \- touch me, make me come undone -”

In an instant, Jack’s fingers are wrapped around his cock, pumping and stroking him, and Gabriel shudders, rocking his hips up into Jack’s tight palm and fingers, and grinding himself back down on Jack’s cock.  Jack fucks up into his tight, slicked heat, growling as he nips kisses along Gabriel’s neck, whispering in dark, deep tones, “C’mon, Gabriel, c’mon - let me feel you come, Gabe, let me fuck you to the edge -”

Gabriel moans, clawing along Jack’s back as that thick, perfect cock fucks bursting, brilliant pleasure into him, his whole body shivering and shaking as the edge comes for him again, the surging storm of Jack’s own pleasure pushing him to the fall and Gabriel -

“ _Fuck_ , Jack, yes - just like that, _so good_ -” Gabriel gasps, his thighs squeezing around Jack’s hips.  Jack rocks into him harder harder, deeper deeper, and the pressure _breaks_ inside Gabriel again -

Jack grinds his cock deep and hard and _furious_ again Gabriel’s pleasured, pressure point and the edge _fills him_ , full and fulfilling, sweeping through him hard and hot and heavy - Gabriel gives a hoarse, broken shout of “ _yes, Jack_ -” his fingernails breaking the skin on Jack’s back, his muscles clenching down tight and tense as his cock spasms and twitches in Jack’s perfect grip, shuddering out white hot liquid pleasure across Jack’s chest.

The moment Gabriel’s tight, sticky-slicked insides grip and grind down on Jack’s cock, Jack shivers, thrusting one-two, three-four into Gabriel’s dense, throbbing heat, Gabriel’s pleasure crashing down all of Jack’s restraint.  His vision nearly whites out from the intensity, burying his head in the crook of Gabriel’s neck as he gasps “ _Gabriel, fuck_ -” before he finally - _finally_ \- releases himself, the edges of his boundaries melting and mixing with the edges of Gabriel’s pleasure, full and fulfilling as he shudders out his thick, white hot liquid ache into Gabriel’s tight perfection.

Gabriel groans with sweet, broken satisfaction as he feels Jack come undone inside him, the sticky, wet heat throbbing inside him as Jack thrusts the last of his orgasm out.

There’s a moment of stillness between them, until Gabriel presses his lips against Jack’s left ear, whispering with a coy smirk:

“Was that all?”

Suddenly, Gabriel finds the whole world spinning for a second, until his head whumps against the pillows, his back against the sheets.  He blinks once, reorients himself as Jack rises above him, a dark, furious, fierce intensity clouding his deep blue eyes again, growling smugly in that perfect, low storm voice:

“Don’t be impatient, Gabe - I’m just getting started with you.”

Gabriel’s eyes go wide, before he settles into a twisted scowl and smirk, taunting to Jack’s own vicious grin:

“C’mon, Jack - show me how badly you’ve missed me.”

\---------

 

_I'd never fall in love with someone else again_

_If I could only taste your lips and this adrenaline_

_I'd never leave here, never leave your bed_

 

_I'd never fall in love with someone else again_

_If I could only taste your lips and this adrenaline_

_I'd never leave here, never leave your bed_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, after finishing a smut piece: Well, that's it. It's never gonna get any wilder than that.
> 
> Narrator: It did, in fact, get wilder than that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [The second day of their vacation]
> 
> Gabriel and Jack get a much-needed slow, sleepy morning, and then head off to the Magic Kingdom for some fun. But things are... _different_ in small, almost unnoticable ways. When all you can see are the fragments of war in between the pieces of your peace, and the looming shadows of what's to come, where do you find yourself?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so uh
> 
> I hadn't forgotten about this.
> 
> Life has been really busy lately, but I hope to keep working on this when I do get down time.
> 
> The opening scene is one of the most self-indulgent things I've ever written, omg

**Segador y Soldado: Day Trip**

Sunday, July 7, 2053: 5:04 a.m. - in bed in the hotel room

 

Jack wakes

And immediately knows it’s too early to be awake.

The light shifting in from the large window to his right is thin and lacy, richly rose gold and blushing peach pink through the fluttering, sheer curtains.  He blinks once, slow and sleepy, blinks twice, stretching with the motion, his brain only half-processing the realization that he must’ve gotten up at some point last night to slide the window open (it was...something of a recurring nightly habit or something).  The air stirs with the softest breeze, like a lush, gentle whisper, as though the world is also not fully awake.  

A transitional moment, in a transitional morning.

He’s curled up against warm, flushed skin, a chest rising and falling steadily beneath his left cheek like the sunrise breeze, soft and yet steady, sound and yet shimmering.  His right arm crosses a cut torso, draped over more soft skin and thick muscles, his body twisted so that his right leg clings to another right leg, winding them together as if he is vine clinging to a tree.

There is an arm beneath his neck, partially supporting him -

Gentle, sleepy fingers curled in his fluffed hair.

Faintly

Jack can hear the beat-beat-beating of the heart he knows and loves near his left ear.

_Gabriel._

He adjusts ever so slightly, the movements slipping out of him inadvertently - his body _ripples_ with soreness, a perfect kind of soreness, muscles stiff with lingering traces of pleasure, the skin of his thighs and hips aching where Gabriel had left hickeys and bruises, the skin of his back _stinging_ wonderfully with the stretch of Gabriel’s scratches.  Jack shivers, not from the perfect mix of just gently chilled morning air mingling with the warmth of the bed, but from how _good_ , how _perfect_ the ache of Gabriel feels across his whole body.

Jack shuts his eyes again.

He nestles himself against Gabriel’s chest, reluctant to wake fully from the feeling of being entwined with him in sex and sleep, but he’s always had the tragic habit of waking far, far too early, ever since morning runs and track training basically pressured the ability into him.  

Jack wakes

And he knows he doesn’t really want to.

This moment is too good, too good - they almost never get soft mornings like this, never get the sweet, heady taste of life stilling and slowing and sleeping around them, as they drift in and out together, like lying on a warm rolling tide, in and out, in and out.  No rush to go anywhere, do anything, be somebody - no missions, no reports, no meetings, no logistics, no strategies, no fears, no anxieties, no shooting.

Nowhere to be

No one to be.

Just them

Together

Half-awake and half-asleep, half-here and half-there, half-whole and whole-halves, completing each other in moments that slip.

Jack wakes

And this moment is all he has ever wanted and more.

He sighs against Gabriel’s skin, eyes slipping back open, admiring the up and down, up and down of his broad chest.  His right hand drifts up Gabriel’s side, lightly drawing fingertips across Gabriel’s left ribs, and then across his sternum to where Jack knows the beat of his heart is the loudest, tracing small, soothing circles there.  He leans into Gabriel a little more, shifting a little more, stretching a little more - his gaze slides upwards, to Gabriel’s scruff-covered chin, his lips with that small scar on them, the curve of his nose, the fullness of his eyelashes.

Jack yearns

And feels his heart swell with emotions that are bittersweet and yet silky serene.

He exhales, pressing a slow, simmering kiss to the base of Gabriel’s neck, shifting a little more, moving a little more, kissing a little more - to the side of the column of his neck, to his Adam’s apple, to the underside of his jaw.  Each kiss is a faint exhale, the softest morning breeze, warm and yet just sweet enough, hazy with sleep but growing hotter with each beat of his heart.  He would give anything and everything to wake like this every morning, placing sunrise kisses across Gabriel’s body, as tenderly as moments that slip.

In the slow sea of sleep

Gabriel shudders.

His mind is still steeped in shadows, deeper and deeper still, but there is a lightening in his consciousness, a slow, simmering pulse as he feels lips - warm dipping into hot, loving drifting into lavishing, framed with morning scruff - kiss and murmur against his neck.  There’s a body - thick, solid muscles but gentle, comfortable skin - pressed around his right side, and tender, admiring fingertips rubbing faintly across his chest.  Before his mind even fully processes things, he is shifting a little, shuddering a little, moving into the hazy pleasure a little, the quietest moan slipping through his own lips as -

_Jack_ -

those warm lips continue to kiss against his jaw.

His body _aches_ , aches in that perfect way of utterly satisfied, utterly full, and even where he’s sore, the ache is _satisfying_ , perfect in how it snaps and sings inside him, and there’s still something meltingly warm, slick and sticky inside him, a heat that lingers like the best reminder of the man entwined around his side, but

Gabriel yearns

And feels himself slip into uneven, transitional awareness, as shifting as the gilded pink shadowed-light in the room.

He exhales, stretching a little, groaning a little, as Jack presses gentle, but passionate kisses against his neck.  He finally connects his mind to his limbs, his fingers slipping through that soft, ruffled hair, spreading wide, palm flat on the side of his head, and without fully knowing it, he moves Jack’s head closer, closer, urging him deeper against his neck, his shoulder, his chest.  Jack shifts readily, burying himself deeper, deeper against the crook of Gabriel’s neck and shoulder, kisses slipping into hotter, harder nips and sucks.  Gabriel’s whole body shudders as pleasure ripples through him like ribboning water, his blood beginning to move again, sluggish and slow but the pace is _good_ , too good, perfect.

Gabriel loves waking to mornings like these

When Jack is ready - _so ready_ \- to make them one again, to entwine them together into slow, sluggish, steady love, to fuck the heady haze of sleep out of him until Gabriel is once again gasping and moaning his name as Jack fills him with aching, perfect pleasure again.

Desire spikes through Jack like a lightning bolt as he feels Gabriel shiver in his arms, relishes in the pressure of Gabriel’s hand on his head, urging him closer, closer.  He shudders slightly as Gabriel gives a low, husky moan of “ _Jack_ ,” causing his semi-stiff cock to twitch at the sound, and - still only half awake himself - Jack gives a slow, soft roll of his hips, grinding his dick against the side of Gabriel’s ass.  Gabriel gasps again, his body writhing into the motion, and Jack lifts his head slightly to see Gabriel’s dark eyes - brushed faintly with light gold dust - drift across his face.

Jack watches

As a slow, simmering ache twists in his groin at the fogged, smoky look of love and pleasure in Gabriel’s face.

Jack loves all forms of sex and desire with Gabriel - hard and fast, when the need to share each other is urgent and furious, all gripping fingers and heavy thrusts; playful and tempting, like last night when Gabriel had burned him heavy and hot until he couldn’t take it, until he almost snapped the binds with sheer force of will to hold Gabriel down; passionate and deep, where they fall into each other with a steady, even rhythm, rocking each other down down down until they melt together, falling to pieces in each other’s arms, coming undone as they moan each other’s names.

And then this.

Slow, almost miserably sweet moments where time drifts and the world disappears, gently heated kisses that quietly turn hotter, tender touches that slide into scratches, soft gasps that whisper into groans, achingly wonderful that twists and coils into perfect pleasure.

Jack watches

And his heart _melts_ a little bit more at the sleepy, crooked, genuinely happy smile Gabriel gives him, his voice hoarse as he murmurs, “Mornin’.  What time is it?”

“Too early,” Jack says honestly, his own voice cracking low with deep shadows, and Gabriel hums at that, his eyes slipping shut again, but his hand pushes a little harder against Jack’s head.  Jack kisses his neck again, chuckling in a heavy, broken tone, “Want me to let you sleep?”

God, the rumble of that seadeep, aching voice makes Gabriel melt all on its own, and at the sound of Jack’s words, he feels a simmer of sharper desire thread and sink in his groin, just behind his half-hard cock.  He shivers, muttering out weakly, “No.  Fuck me, Jack - _please_.”

Damn, the added, sunrise _lilt_ to the last word - the broken open honesty of it, the sweet, honeyed pleading in it - cuts straight to Jack’s cock like nothing else.  He nips at Gabriel’s collarbone, the sleepy smugness practically dripping in his tone as he murmurs, “Whatever you want, Gabi - I’m yours.”

Gabriel shivers at the words, pleasure rippling through him from Jack’s increasingly urgent kisses across his neck and chest, from where Jack’s fingers are drifting down down down, from where Jack’s long, thick cock is grinding against his hip.  There’s the press of warm lips and a deep, heady whisper against his neck, “Wanna make you feel good, Gabe, wanna make you come undone again.”

Gabriel shudders, groaning, “God, yes, _please_ , Jack.”  Jack gives a wry, mischievous chuckle - _how does he_ sound _like that so early in the morning_ \- asking patiently, “Lube, Gabe?”

In the fogged haze of his mind, Gabriel somehow remembers where he left it, throwing his left arm out to the bedside table, blindly groping around for where he’d tossed the bottle after their fifth or sixth round last night, or whenever they’d finally burned off enough of their furious desire to fuck each other and fuck with each other to fall asleep.  His fingers find the slightly slippery plastic and he somehow manages to pull his fraying mind together enough to bring it to his partner -

Though Jack is making concentrating miserably, wonderfully difficult

As he lavishes kisses and nips against the crook of Gabriel’s jaw

And his fingers stroke lazily at Gabriel’s cock.

Pleasure bursts through his lower body as Jack’s fingers pause momentarily, only to put soft, lightly calloused pressure on the cockhead, and Gabriel’s fingers twist reflexively in Jack’s hair, getting a low, amazing moan out of him.  Gabriel holds up the bottle, and Jack releases his grip on Gabriel’s cock with a faint sigh, taking the lube from him as he murmurs warmly, “On your side?”

Gabriel half-hums, half-grumbles at the thought of moving his sore, aching body from Jack’s touch, but Jack helps, slotting his left hand between them, and slowly urging Gabriel onto his left side.  Gabriel shifts, rotating his back towards Jack, settling his shoulder just beneath the pillow, shivering lightly as Jack’s left hand traces soft, admiring fingertips down his spine, his right hand (somehow still managing to grip the lube bottle) holding his right hipbone.  There’s a momentary pause as the bed resettles beneath them, and Jack adjusts, slipping the bottle to his left hand as his gaze slides appreciatively down Gabriel’s broad, muscular back, to the cut waist, to the curve of his ass.

Jack bites his lower lip, pleasure spiking through his dazed mind as he flattens his right hand against the tight muscles and rich skin there, and Gabriel gives a low, smoky moan as Jack’s right thumb spreads him slightly, Jack slotting his right leg between Gabriel’s to keep him a little more open.  Gabriel arcs to the touch, whispering in a throaty murmur, “Ah, _Jack_ -”

Jack chuckles quietly, relishing in how responsive Gabriel is to every motion, every press - with silent deftness, he pops the cap of the lube bottle with his left hand, pulling his right hand back to drizzle the slick wetness onto his right fingers.  With how relaxed and warm Gabriel is, it won’t take long to work him back open, and Jack caps the bottle, dropping it between them as he moves in a little bit more, closes the gap a little bit more to press loving, desirous kisses to the back of Gabriel’s neck.

Gabriel shudders at the feeling of Jack’s lips, his left hand sliding under the pillow, gripping hard as his right drifts down down down, thumbing at his own aching cock, and _mierda_ , how is he already dripping slightly?  There are dry, lightly calloused fingers gripping at the cleft of his ass, and then those wonderful, slightly rough lips are kissing against the soft spot behind his ear, murmuring in that sweet, low husk, “Love you, Gabe -”

Gabriel feels slick fingertips press against his tight but still achingly relaxed muscles and then -

The first two slip inside with relative ease.

Gabriel groans as the sore ache, just a slow, dull pressure only a second ago, begins to burn again, building into a heated throb as Jack works his fingers inside him, in and out, in and out, sliding up higher as Jack lilts just behind his ear, “That’s it, Gabriel, relax for me - god, you feel so good -”

Twinges of shivery, simmering pleasure ripple through him as Jack pushes in harder, presses in deeper and then -

Jack pauses.

He thinks his fogged, hazy mind has broken

Because there’s still a lingering, hot, sticky wetness inside Gabriel.

His breath catches in his throat as Gabriel moans softly, “Jack, _please_ \- what -”

“...You didn’t clean up last night?”

Jack can’t stop the words from tumbling out of his mouth in a breathless, almost reverential whisper.  He feels Gabriel freeze slightly against his chest, and the meltingly hot muscles around his fingers spasm and clench down at the words.  There’s a slow, drifting moment that seems lost to time and then -

Gabriel adjusts his head, glancing over his right shoulder, one obsidian-smoke eye, marbled with the haze of lust and desire and pleasure, drawing Jack’s gaze -

And Gabriel murmurs with a sly, sleepy playfulness:

“...Didn’t want to - wanted to feel you inside me all night.”

Jack definitely _wakes_ at that.

His fingers twist in _harder_ , _hotter_ , causing Gabriel to shudder and shake outright as pleasure racks his body from where Jack’s fingers push against his sore, aching pressure point, Gabriel’s legs curling tighter around Jack’s, his right hand stroking himself a little stronger as the liquid lightning sensation floods up his nerves and spine.  Jack is nipping and biting lightly at the shell of his ear, moaning in that wonderful thunderstorm voice, each word dripping with desire, “ _God_ , Gabriel, that’s so hot, _fuck_ , you’re so good - gonna fuck you so good -”

“Jack, _please_ -” Gabriel pleads again, gasping as his left fingers grip harder into the pillow, his right hand stroking faster - spikes of pleasure pulse through him stronger, harder, from where Jack’s fingers deftly pressure and fuck into him, from where his own hand teases his hard cock, from where Jack is urgently placing heated kisses and even hotter whispers against his neck.

Jack _knows_ there’s no real rush -

But his own thick, aching desire to fuck Gabriel into early, drifting bliss pushes him faster, faster - he _needs_ to be inside him, to feel those tight muscles clench and throb around him, to feel his own white hot stickiness melt with Gabriel’s tense, slick pleasure around his stiff, dripping cock

To feel Gabriel come undone again and again and again in his arms before the sun has even fully risen and before the world is even fully real.

Jack pulls his fingers from Gabriel, not caring about the mess of it as he grips Gabriel’s ass, spreading him a little bit more, slotting his own hips against the curve.  Gabriel gasps again, whispering in that broken, hoarse voice, “ _Rapido,_ Jack, _por favor, te quiero_ -” his body responding readily to Jack’s fingers, to the brush of Jack’s cock against his skin.  Jack chuckles again, slipping his left hand down to help angle his dick to Gabriel’s slick muscles -

And, again with relative ease -

Jack slides his cock inside.

“Oh, _Gabe_ -” Jack moans openly against Gabriel’s neck as the dense, wet pressure surrounds him, both sticky and slippery, hot and tight, aching and perfect, and Gabriel tenses as Jack fills him just right, just a little bit more, a little bit harder, a little bit fuller than Jack had actually opened him, but the throbbing roughness of it is _perfect_ , it’s exactly everything Gabriel’s desire-filled mind had wanted - Jack filling him up, stretching him out, long, thick hardness sliding deeper and deeper.  Gabriel groans, “Yes, Jack, _yes_ , more -” as his whole body shakes and arcs, his right hand slipping from his own cock to draw back to where Jack’s hip is pressed up against his ass, digging fingernails into the firm muscle there, urging Jack on -

Jack shudders, pulling his hips back and then pushing in again, pleasure bolting through his cock and groin as Gabriel’s tight, wet heat surrounds him again, clenching down as he thrusts in and out, in and out.  The motion is perfect inside Gabriel, a deep fullness that pressures him inside to out, pounding out the slow but steady rolling waves of pleasure - he moans openly as the ache inside him _throbs_ with the hot, melting feeling of Jack fucking him good, so good, so perfect.

“Yes, Jack, more -” Gabriel urges him, rocking his hips back, shaking as each thrust fucks another roll of spine-melting lightning through him, like a liquid pressure that somehow both flashes and burns, shudders and shivers.  His right fingers dig and pull at the swell of Jack’s ass, urging him closer closer, faster faster.  Jack groans against his neck, whispering deeply, “Oh, Gabriel, you’re good, you feel so good -”

Jack curls himself in closer around Gabriel - his chest to Gabriel’s back, his hips pressed right up to the swell of Gabriel’s ass, his lips kissing at the back of Gabriel’s neck.  He manages to slide his left arm under Gabriel’s torso, wrapping it around him, hugging Gabriel close as his right fingers dig into Gabriel’s hipbone, holding him firm as Jack rocks his lower body against Gabriel’s - in and out, in and out, fucking him slow yet steady, giving him hot kisses and ever hotter groans against his neck every time Gabriel tenses and clenches down around his cock.

Gabriel moans, relishing in the feeling of Jack’s strong arm around him, Jack’s broad chest flush against his back, Jack’s rough fingers gripping at his hip, Jack’s long, thick cock thrusting into him, in and out, in and out, the feeling melting into him, shuddering through his groin, curling up his spine, causing his cock to ache with dripping pleasure.  His own fingers scratch at the curve of Jack’s ass, as he urges Jack on in a low, throaty tone, “Harder, Jack, faster, need more of you -”

Jack gives a deep, almost needy growl, biting lightly into the swell of Gabriel’s shoulder, fucking his cock in stronger, rougher, his pace shifting from the slower, steadier ease to a tenser, heavier churning.  Gabriel’s dense, wet heat tightens around him as he moans with such _want_ in Jack’s arms and Jack shudders at the sound, slipping his right hand from Gabriel’s hip to his cock, stroking with a touch that is somehow light and teasing, yet fast and unrelenting.

God, the way Gabriel’s whole body tenses with his growing ecstasy, how his deep, thick muscles flex and squeeze with each roll of Jack’s hips, with each thrust of Jack’s cock, almost sends Jack over the edge, but he focuses in on Gabriel’s pleasure, stroking Gabriel’s dripping dick faster, grinding his cock in in in against Gabriel’s pressure point -

Gabriel moans openly, his whole body shuddering as pleasure seems to burn through him from where the thick head of Jack’s cock is pressing hard and deep against his ache, melting into the feeling of Jack inside and outside of him.  He rocks his own hips forward, thrusting into Jack’s slightly wet grip, gasping at how perfect it feels around his needy cock, before he rolls himself back onto Jack’s incredible, full hardness, pulling Jack forward at the same time.

They move like this, grinding into and onto each other in easy, entwined unison, gasping each other’s name, tensing and shaking - Gabriel shuddering and squeezing so perfectly around Jack, tight and strong, so strong and Jack thrusting and sliding into Gabriel, thick and full, so full - until Gabriel groans out, “ _Fuck_ , Jack, _so close_ , gonna come -”

“Wanna see you, Gabriel,” Jack murmurs against his neck, even as his hips refuse to slow down, thrusting his cock in and in, in and in - Gabriel gasps and arcs again, even as he clenches down nice and tight around Jack’s leaking cock.  Jack kisses Gabriel’s neck, pressing his words and desires to Gabriel’s perfect skin, “Let me see you, Gabe, please -”

Before the words are fully out of Jack’s mouth, Gabriel is nodding, pleading, “ _Please_ , Jack - oh _fuuuuck_ , please - want to see you too -”  Jack groans, forcing himself to stop, pulling his cock out of Gabriel’s perfect heat, slipping his right hand up to Gabriel’s abs.  Together, they shift around, almost seamlessly, untangling arms and legs - Gabriel slides onto his back as Jack rises over him, easily slotting himself between Gabriel’s thighs and -

Jack stops.

Gabriel looks _incredible_ like this - his expression cloudy, those obsidian-gold eyes _melting_ with utter pleasure and bliss, chest rising and falling heavily, his cock upright and dripping, tight ring of muscles waiting for Jack, also dripping with lubed wetness and Jack’s own white hot ecstasy from last night.  Everything about him is relaxed, warm, unthinkingly _happy_ , and when he lifts his smoky gaze to Jack’s face, Gabriel gives him a wide, crooked grin, opening his arms as he playfully taunts, “C’mon, Jack - make me moan for you.”

Jack smirks back roguishly, chuckling, “You have _no idea_ what you’re asking for, Gabe.”

“I know _exactly_ what I waaa _ant - ah_ ,” Gabriel starts to tease back, but the words are cut off into the very moan he was begging for, his body tensing as Jack thrusts his cock inside him, pulling hard on Gabriel’s hips, fucking himself in deep deep deep, grinding rough and full against Gabriel’s prostate, and god damn, it is _worth it_ for the tremor of pleasure that racks Gabriel, for the way his breath catches in his chest, the way his eyes roll back, the way his slick, hot muscles clench around Jack and _melt_ with him.

“ _Yes_ ,” Gabriel exhales, shuddering as pleasure bursts through his lower body like liquid fire, squeezing tight around Jack’s thick hardness, as Jack fucks into him, rough and deep and yet miserably, achingly sweet too.  Each thrust is like a throbbing sunburst inside him, and Gabriel recoils like the pull of a gun, wrapping his legs around Jack as his fingers dig into the sheets, groaning, “That’s it, Jack - _fuck_ , _more_ \- god, _so close_ -”

Jack bites at his lips, relishing in the feeling of Gabriel’s tight ache shuddering and flexing around his dick, shivering as Gabriel’s thighs squeeze against his hips and his calves curl against his lower back.  He snaps his hips forward, grinding in and out, in and out, his fingers pulling at Gabriel’s waist, focusing his gaze on how Gabriel throws his head back, expression open and perfect, shaking in overwhelming pleasure.  When Gabriel looks at him again, there’s a beautiful, dark haze to Gabriel’s eyes, as he murmurs pleadingly, “So close, Jack, don’t stop, you feel so good -”

Jack _breaks_.

He shifts forward, wrapping his right hand around Gabriel’s dick, sliding himself onto his knees, settling his chest against Gabriel’s - Gabriel meets him partway, one arm sliding around Jack’s shoulders, fingers in his hair, nails raking perfectly across his scalp, the other hand gripping firmly at Jack’s ass, urging him in in in, deeper deeper deeper.  Jack readily complies, pressing his hips flush against the angle of Gabriel’s thighs, thrusting himself as deep as his cock can go, pulling out only a little before rocking himself back in, tugging and teasing Gabriel’s dick.  But -

Gabriel presses his lips to Jack’s - it’s more a breathless, gasping shared moan than a kiss, but it’s everything, it’s entwined with a slow, not-morning still soaked in shadows and shuddering shivers, tense, aching bliss mixed with heavy thrusts and surprisingly ephemeral touches.  They breathe into each other, hard exhales and steep inhales, even as they move inside and around each other, holding each other through moments that slip, loving each other with all that they have as times drifts and -

“ _Almost there_ -” Gabriel urges Jack in a hoarse whisper - Jack’s deep, intense blue eyes focus in on him, a scowl of heavy concentration somehow making his features all the better as Gabriel shivers from both the look and the pleasure flooding through him like melting stars.  He groans, clenching down as Jack thrusts into him, his right fingernails scratching across Jack’s shoulders again, his left fingers pulling and tugging in Jack’s hair.  A low, aching moan escapes Jack’s lips, the sound causing frisson across Gabriel’s skin as that hard cock pushes wave after wave of shuddering pleasure through him, Jack’s slightly wet fingers stroking at his own cock and he -

Gabriel squeezes his thighs tighter around Jack’s hips as Jack fucks him faster faster, his pace growing rougher and heavier and hotter, and the coiling tension inside Gabriel melts down - he rocks his hips forward, pressing his cock deep into Jack’s perfect grip, before grinding back down on Jack’s perfect hardness, driving it hard into his pressure point as pleasure breaks and floods through him.  His right hand dives down to grip at Jack’s ass, forcing Jack as deep as he’ll go, pushing those rough, thick thrusts, full and fulfilling, right up against his sore but aching pleasure as he moans, “ _Yes, Jack, yes_ \- right there, look at me -”

Jack lifts his head, tilting his own hazy, deep, storm-studded blue eyes at Gabriel and -

Gabriel _melts._

He shudders as he comes undone, ecstasy bursting through him like a lightning bolt, setting his senses alight as his world blurs out into dimly-lit, smoky sunrises, his mind breaking into utter blissfulness, his cock shaking as Jack rides him through it and inside him -

Jack winces with utter pleasure as Gabriel’s tight, slick heat seems to squeeze and tense and then _melt_ around him, and he manages to watch Gabriel’s expression slip into regal, raw honesty before he too shudders, groaning openly as the ache and throb in his groin burn through him, a white hot pleasure that thrusts into Gabriel, full and fulfilling - Jack presses his forehead to Gabriel’s as Gabriel’s perfect joy and ecstasy squeeze him through it, gasping, “Love you, Gabriel, I got you, you’re so good, _mi sol, mi rey_ -”

And then Gabriel’s lips are pressed back against his -

The kiss is deep and warm and passionate, soaked in the thin rays of gilded, rosy light of the pre-dawn, eager and breathless, entirely their own as the world continues to slip by them, love and loving that is somehow bright and radiant yet subdued and soft, slow shadows and sighing seas.  They break only to inhale briefly before they return, kissing and humming contented sighs against each other’s lips as Jack gives a few more steady, strong thrusts and Gabriel tightens and shivers around him.

Their kisses turn slow, relaxed and sweet, softly steady as Gabriel runs soothing fingers through Jack’s overly-fluffed hair, the cowlicks and spikes sticking up at odd angles.  Jack pulls away slightly, watching Gabriel watch him, brushing gentle fingertips across the scars on Gabriel’s cheek.  At the feeling of Jack’s calloused fingers on his skin, Gabriel gives his partner a wide, charming, happy grin, nuzzling into the touch as he whispers hoarsely, “Love it when you wake me up like that, _mi corazón_.”

“Well, I love waking you up like that,” Jack murmurs contentedly, pressing another kiss to Gabriel’s smile.  Neither of them are in any rush to move, still entwined together, Jack’s hardness fading slightly but still firm enough for him to groan gently as Gabriel shifts around him, Gabriel’s legs still wrapped around his lower back.  Jack gives a soft roll of his hips and Gabriel shudders as the motion feels like the pulse of an aftershock to how overstimulated he is, moaning low and open against Jack’s lips.  After a beat of this fainter, quieter rhythm, Jack manages to sigh lowly, “We should get cleaned up.”  He kisses Gabriel warmly, asking, “You wanna shower first?”

“Mmm,” Gabriel kisses back, before pulling away a little bit, smirking coyly at Jack as he replies with a sweet, smoky haze to his words:

“Come with me?”

Jack’s eyes flicker wide in dazed amazement and Gabriel gives him a bright, smug grin, kissing him with a quiet chuckle.  Jack smirks back, teasing him against Gabriel’s lips, “All of last night and this morning _and_ you still want more?”

“Mmm, indulge me on my vacation, Jack,” Gabriel teases right back, nipping lightly at Jack’s lower lip, and Jack shivers at the feeling.  Gabriel grins, adding wryly, “Let me take my sweet time and enjoy you the way I want.”

“Whatever you say,” Jack says back, his words underlined with a low laugh that gets Gabriel’s burn to twist and coil in his gut behind his cock and, _god damn_ , it’s only been a minute or two but he feels his cock, half-hard and wet with his own pleasure, twitch slightly in Jack’s hand.  They adjust shakily, Jack rising, grabbing the lube bottle with his left hand as Gabriel unwinds himself from his lower body.  There are several uneven, slow movements as they lead each other from the bed to the bathroom, Jack slipping his left arm around Gabriel’s lower back, but each soft step gets a wince of sore, satisfied pleasure from Gabriel and, _mierda_ , a spike of desire ripples through Jack at each smoky, pleasured scowl that flitters across Gabriel’s face.

They’re not evenly fully there before they’re wrapped around each other again, Jack kissing and nipping playfully at Gabriel’s neck as Gabriel groans and murmurs sweet, syrupy words in Jack’s ear, Jack’s right fingers teasing lightly around the head of Gabriel’s cock, stumbling into the small, upright, glass shower, barely managing to slide the rolling door shut behind them.  Gabriel’s hands manage to fumble with the water controls and, a fraction of a second later, they’re doused in gently warm water, and Jack rises from his neck, sputtering and gasping, “Shit, I wasn’t ready -”

“That’s what you get for being an unhelpful lug on the way here,” Gabriel chuckles, sliding himself around to face his partner, his fingers slipping back the wet flop of Jack’s hair as he works the water into his bedhead.  Jack watches him with tender amusement and a slight smirk, as Gabriel manages to slick back the untameable fluff, finally held down with wet weight.  Gabriel drifts his eyes over Jack, biting at his lower lip as he chuckles, “The slicked back look is good on you, Juan.”

“I can’t control it anymore than you can, Gabi,” Jack retorts, slipping his hands down to Gabriel’s waist, pulling Gabriel’s hips flush with his, grinding their hardening cocks against each other.  Gabriel shudders in his arms, and Jack leans in to claim another kiss, pushing Gabriel’s back up against the tiled wall.  The water only seems to magnify the intensity, wet steam and warm droplets running rivulets across them, stinging _perfectly_ in the scratches across Jack’s back, sending shivers across his skin as Gabriel wraps his arms around his shoulders, digging fingernails into his muscles all over again, groaning _wonderfully_ against Jack’s lips in a heated whisper.

“C’mon, Jack, c’mon,” Gabriel urges him on, feeling his need to feel Jack again, feel Jack inside him, feel Jack melt him down and rock him to his core burn and twist again in his lower body.  He pulls Jack in closer, letting Jack push him up against the wall, feeling the water and white hot slickness of Jack’s pleasure begin to slip down his thighs and, _fuck_ , he just wants to feel more, feel Jack more, feel the moment a little bit more and -

“Turn around for me, Gabe,” Jack murmurs back, giving a few last rolls of his hips against Gabriel’s.  With a slow groan, Gabriel turns himself, Jack’s hands helping him adjust in the tiny space of the shower, and Gabriel presses his hands against the wall, angling himself down a little, letting Jack shift his lower back and ass and legs as he needs to.  Jack admires the sight of Gabriel, dripping wet and dripping with him, pressed up against the tiles, and he gives a low, throaty rumble, “You look good like this, Gabe.”

“Funny, I thought I always looked good -” Gabriel starts to retort, but he hears the snap of the cap of the lube bottle, and with a deep, raspy rumble that causes the _need_ inside him to coil and wind, Jack replies reverentially, “You _do_ always look good, _mi rey_ , but I’m always happy to compliment you on that.”

“...You smug, little sweet-taaa _lker_ \- _ah_ ,” Gabriel manages to say, before his words drop off into a low, rolling moan as Jack’s cock slides inside him, easy and thick, full and fulfilling all over again.  He arcs into the feeling as stiff, hard pleasure pushes into him again, pressuring against the overwhelming, overstimulated _ache_ inside him, feeling Jack’s fingers tug back on his hips.  Gabriel complies readily, rocking himself back as Jack rolls his hips forward, thrusting that thick, hard cock deep inside him, one wave of pleasure shuddering through Gabriel at the feeling.

“Mmm, you feel as good as you look too,” Jack half-laughs, half-teases, half-groans as Gabriel’s wet, tense heat tightens around him, thrusting himself in in in before pulling back out, only to push in again as deep as he can go.  He spreads his hands on the curve of Gabriel’s ass, gripping there, letting Gabriel’s thighs steady him against the motion, as Gabriel groans in that gilded, hazy sunrise tone, “ _Fuck, Jack_ \- right there, _so good_ \- keep talking to me -”

“You’re good, you feel so good,” Jack urges him, thumbing at the rim of Gabriel’s tightness, thrusting his cock in and out, in and out.  He leans in closer, kissing and murmuring up Gabriel’s wet spine in a deep, rich warmth, “Want to love you however you want me, want to give you anything and everything you want from me -”

At the words and voice he loves hearing, Gabriel squeezes around that long, full cock inside him, sliding back as Jack grinds forward, relishing at how perfect Jack feels, bolts of pleasure lightning through him with each roll of Jack’s hips and each pounding thrust of Jack’s dick.  Steam fills his lungs and Jack fills his ache as Jack nips lightly at the back of his neck, muttering coyly, “Love you, Gabriel - let me help you feel good -”

Gabriel shudders at each soft rumble of Jack’s voice, at each shaking thrust of Jack’s hips, at each hard, deep press of Jack’s cock against his aching pressure point, the thick fullness and overwhelming push melting him down, making him groan as his mind fogs with the wet warmth of the water and the perfectly easy, perfectly rough rhythm of Jack’s pleasure.  Jack flinches as Gabriel shudders around him, tightening his tense, deep muscles around his dripping, aching cock, a dense, wet heat that makes the throb of ecstasy burn and swell throughout Jack - he nuzzles against Gabriel’s neck, leaning his forehead against Gabriel’s right shoulder, moaning openly, “You’re perfect, Gabriel, _te amo, te amo_ -”

“Harder, Jack,” Gabriel pleads with him, sliding his left hand forward, leaning his forearm against the wall, bracing himself as Jack responds eagerly, his pace picking up and pushing harder harder, faster faster, his cock fucking into Gabriel rough and deep.  Gabriel sighs with a smoky, soft contentment, feeling Jack fuck the pleasure out of his ache, the press of Jack’s cock driving him _just right_ , the feeling melting down down down and -

“ _That’s it, Jack_ ,” Gabriel murmurs, his voice cracking and fraying at the edges as each thrust snaps his restraint a little more.  He drops his right hand to wrap his fingers around his own shuddering cock, gripping hard as he strokes himself through the steam, gasping as he rolls his hips forward and back, forward and back and then -

Jack’s lips are pressed up by his right ear, that deep, stormy voice whispering with a crackling plead, a begging urgency:

“Let me do it, Gabriel - _please, please, Gabe_ \- let me -”

Jack’s right hand - still slightly slick with some of the lube he’d spread on his cock - slips around Gabriel’s waist, his fingers pressing incessantly at the back of Gabriel’s hand, and Gabriel relents immediately, gasping with a soft moan as Jack’s slick, hot fingers replace his, Jack’s grip tense and firm and _just right_ , _exactly_ how he knows Gabriel likes it, stroking and tugging him.  Gabriel shivers, shaking his hips forward, pushing his dripping, leaking cock into Jack’s grip, and then rocking himself back, riding himself hard on Jack’s own dripping, leaking cock inside him, pushing himself back as Jack thrusts himself in in in.  Jack grinds the head of his cock against Gabriel’s throbbing swell, the thick fullness of him stretching him _perfectly_ , with the deep, aching roughness that snaps bursts of pleasure through Gabriel’s groin and up his spine.

“ _Ah, Jack, fuck_ ,” Gabriel groans, resting his head against his forearm on the wall, using his upper body to brace them as Jack works their shared pleasure together with a rapidly increasing pace and a rapidly deteriorating control - his thrusts are growing sporadic, as are the squeezes and rolls of Gabriel’s hot, tense muscles around his cock, and _fuck_ , it feels good, it feels _so good_ , _so right_ to push Gabriel’s legs a little farther apart, to grip the curve of Gabriel’s ass a little firmer, to fuck himself into Gabriel’s shuddering, dense, slick heat a little harder, a little hotter, a little rougher, a little deeper, pressing himself in in in as Gabriel shakes and squeezes around him.  Jack bites lightly at the back of Gabriel’s neck, rolling his hips, pushing his cock in deep as he growl-rumbles, “ _Fuck yes, Gabriel - you’re so good, so good -_ will you say my name for me when you come, please, Gabe?”

“Ah, _holy hell, Jack_ ,” Gabriel moans, pleasure bursting through him and melting him down as Jack thrusts in extra hard, angling his thick cock right against Gabriel’s roiling ache, feeling his mind start to snap loose again as stars burn and shudder inside him.  The slow, dense heat of the shower curls around his senses as his nerves fill with a liquid fire, flooding out from where Jack rides into him, from where Jack’s teeth and lips brush against his neck, from where Jack’s fingers stroke his cock in perfect rhythm.  Gabriel lifts his head from his arm, glancing back at Jack, gilded obsidian eyes meeting storm-burning blue as he urges Jack on:

“So close, Jack, _so close_ \- _make me come for you, love you_ -”

Jack snaps.

His left hand lifts off of Gabriel’s curves, shifting to the high cut of Gabriel’s left cheek, pressing him back a little more, as he moves his lips to kiss lovingly at the scars on Gabriel’s right cheek - they shift forward ever so slightly, letting them move even closer against each other, wet and warm, gliding together easily, Jack still managing to keep Gabriel’s legs spread just enough for him to press his cock as far in as he’ll go, the base of it flush with Gabriel’s tight rim, grinding inside him with thick, tight thrusts that cause Gabriel to shudder and shiver, his right hand stroking furiously at Gabriel’s cock, wet with water but there’s a stickiness from Gabriel’s leaking ecstasy.   _God damn_ , Jack wants nothing - _nothing_ \- more than to see and _feel_ Gabriel come undone again in his arms, wet and slick, tight and _perfect_ , melting with steam and water and Jack’s rough, hard pleasure deep, deep inside him.

Gabriel feels the edge coming again.

It floods and burns through him, melting all his thoughts and senses down into a thick, hot pleasure that Jack fucks into him, deep and full from where his short but _perfect_ , _so incredibly perfect_ thrusts are pressing and pressuring that long, thick cock against his shuddering ache, from where Jack’s hand is guiding him with fast but _perfect, so incredibly perfect_ strokes around his own dripping cock.  Gabriel groans, riding down heavy and hot on Jack’s cock, squeezing and tightening around it as the fire and the flood break through him, white hot and furious with joy and bliss, love and Jack, and he tilts his head just a bit more, feeling Jack kiss at the corner of his mouth as he whispers with a broken, molten ache:

“ _Jack, Jack - stay with me, love you, Jack -_ ”

And then Gabriel comes undone.

The pleasure overwhelms and overstimulates him, setting every nerve on fire as it floods and flashes through him, lightning bursts and boiling heat that melt him down into nothing - _nothing_ \- but the sensation of utter fullness and fulfillment.  He tightens up even as he falls apart, his cock shuddering in Jack’s hand as he releases his white hot pleasure from Jack’s grip, his muscles clenching down taut around Jack’s own thick, heavy cock inside him, and he watches through the angle of his eyes as Jack flinches and winces with his own pleasure.

Jack shivers, feeling Gabriel shake and fall apart in his arms, and he moans openly against the corner of Gabriel’s mouth as Gabriel’s wet, tense heat tightens and squeezes around him as Gabriel rides him through his ecstasy, fucking himself down on Jack’s cock as his own twitches and spasms in Jack’s hand.  Jack presses his own cock in in in, thrusting one-two, three-four as he rubs and rolls it against the slick, hot stickiness and Gabriel’s dense, shuddering muscles and then -

Jack comes undone with him.

His senses melt down as the hot tightness in his groin burns out, releasing from his cock with an aching thrust, pleasure fueling through him like the brightest fire, like a dripping sun, and he lets Gabriel ride and grind him through the haze of the edge, kissing at Gabriel’s lips and cheek, feeling Gabriel’s hand wrap around his on Gabriel’s cock, the two of them twisting and pulling each other through it.  Gabriel pushes back on Jack’s throbbing cock, squeezing down as his white hot liquid pleasure bursts inside his partner, his king, his commander, Gabriel’s soft, smoky voice carrying his unraveling mind through the blinding motion, as he murmurs with all the tenderness and heat of the steam:

“I’m here, Jack, I got you - love you, stay with me until the end -”

Jack slows his thrusting, shivering as he slips his hands back to Gabriel’s waist, kissing his cheek sweetly, slowly.  There’s a subtle shift as Gabriel turns back towards him - they slide apart, groaning as they pull themselves from each other, but their senses and selves are still intertwined, and in a moment, they are back together, facing each other, Jack pressing Gabriel back up against the tile, murmuring soft words against each other’s lips:

“God, Gabriel, you’re so…” Jack says lovingly, his right hand bracing Gabriel’s hip, his left fingers rubbing gently across Gabriel’s high cheek.  Gabriel’s obsidian smoke eyes - filled with utter pleasure and relaxation - drift over his face, giving him the warmest, happiest grin Jack’s seen on him in a long time as he hums back, “Amazing?  Perfect?  Best supra-national military task force commander and genius tactician you’ve ever fucked?”

“...Yeah, those were the _exact_ words I was gonna say,” Jack jokes back, kissing Gabriel’s neck as Gabriel winds his arms around Jack’s shoulders again.  Gabriel laughs deeply, richly, pressing his own smile to the side of Jack’s head as he teases back, “I know, Jack - I know your every thought before you even think it.  It’s part of my genius.  Number one Jack Morrison mind reader in the world.”

“Jesus, I should’ve let you sleep if you were gonna get this smug about it,” Jack snorts, kissing Gabriel’s cheek, but Gabriel taunts back, “Thought you were gonna indulge me on our vacation, Juan.”

“Didn’t I just do that?” Jack asks with only-partial surprise, leaning back slightly to give Gabriel a dazed glance.  Gabriel tilts a smug, cocksure smirk at him, chuckling, “Is that what you call it?”

“...And I thought you wanted to actually do stuff today,” Jack says, but there’s a low, desirous rumble to his words that gets Gabriel to bite at his lower lip again, still smirking as he assesses Jack anew.  Jack leans in, pressing his lips to Gabriel’s as Gabriel taunts back, “‘Round two of shower sex’ is, quite literally, doing stuff.”

“And if I keep you in bed all day after?” Jack teases, nipping lightly at Gabriel’s lips, as he feels Gabriel’s chest hitch slightly at his words.  Jack chuckles deeply, darkly, “How does that work for ‘indulging you’?”

“...Well, I wanted to ride some roller coasters,” Gabriel says with a wry tone, before murmuring with a low, smoky heat, “...But I won’t say no to riding you again instead.”

“Hmm, how ‘bout we compromise?” Jack offers coyly, to which Gabriel retorts quietly, “Pretty sure compromising is the direct definitional opposite of indulgence…”

“Ride me a few more times, and then we’ll go ride some roller coasters?” Jack murmurs with a rich, coy twist to his voice.  Gabriel pauses and then gives him a bright, crooked, smug grin, kissing his response to Jack’s lips with an easy haziness:

“You always know exactly how to indulge me, Jack.”

\---------

**Segador: Disneyland**

Sunday, July 7, 2053: 12:36 p.m. - just exiting the Matterhorn, in northeast Disneyland Theme Park, Anaheim, California

 

“Dude...dude,” Jack groans, “We gotta stop.”

Gabriel glances over his shoulder at his partner, who is stumbling along behind him as they wind their way through the exit line.  All around them, families and children and tourists young and old shout and screech and laugh as they move - some run, some dash, some hop, some skip, and some simply amble - beneath the rising heat and the overhead sun.  Gabriel pauses, letting some kids scoot by as he waits for Jack, pulling his sunglasses from his shirt, flicking them on with ease as Jack falls in beside him.

“What’re you, seventy-six?” Gabriel asks dryly, before laughing wryly at his own dumb joke.  Jack - aka “SEP Soldier: 76” - rolls his eyes, grumbling, “Haha, like you’ve never used that one before.  C’mon, Gabe, my heart can’t take this kinda pressure.”

“...So you _are_ seventy-six?” Gabriel snorts as they start to move their way to the exit gate again.  Jack sighs, pulling out his own sunglasses as he mumbles, “We’ve ridden the Matterhorn _seven times in a row_ -”

“I rode _you_ more than that this morning,” Gabriel chuckles lowly, which gets a faint blush out of Jack, but with the heat of the early afternoon and his obvious stress it’s barely visible.  Jack manages to ignore the coy remark, gritting out, “It’s going to kill me.”

“Where’s the risk-taking, daredevil dumbass I know and love?” Gabriel teases him, sliding through the wrought iron exit gate.  Jack slips through behind him, muttering with a heavy sigh, “Look, I’ll do any manner of dumb shit with you, but _hot damn_ , risking my life on a roller coaster that is one-hundred years old and _has the potential to break down at any second_ is just -”

Jack makes a weak-willed, limp gesture with his hands, causing Gabriel to snort affectionately as he murmurs warmly, “ _Pinche idiota_.”  He wraps his right arm around Jack, pulling him in close, pressing a soft kiss to the side of his head, Jack’s overly-fluffed, sunshine-warmed hair soft and soothing on his face.  From this angle, he can _feel_ Jack’s loving bashfulness, as Jack’s left arm squeezes him back.

_Kinda wish he’d worn the tank top_ , Gabriel thinks smugly, catching a small, short-lived glimpse of some of the hickeys at the base of Jack’s neck, peeking out from beneath the collar of his t-shirt.  Still, Gabriel won’t complain much, because despite Jack strapping on a smartwatch and the Disneyland wristband, Gabriel can still see the faint, shadowy marks from last night on Jack’s wrists.  There’s a twinge of fiercer, more biting love in Gabriel’s heart, before he slides his arm from Jack’s shoulders, instead tracing his right fingers lightly down Jack’s left arm, before -

His fingers tap at Jack’s hands needily, and then -

Jack entwines his with Gabriel’s.

“Fine, fine,” Gabriel sighs tauntingly, “We can stop.  I was getting pretty hungry anyways.  Plus we gotta get over to Big Thunder and Indiana and Pirates.”

“...Those are on the _other side_ of the park, right?” Jack asks, with a twist of tiredness in his voice.  Gabriel gives him a mischievous grin, adding, “Yeah, but we can get lunch in New Orleans Square.”  Jack makes an “oh true” appreciative face, leaning into Gabriel a little as they move northward.

“Shouldn’t we head...the other direction then?” Jack suggests, but Gabriel rolls his shoulders, replying, “We can cut left through Fantasyland and go around from the north.”  Jack chuckles, humming a little, “Whatever you say, Gabi.”  They wander a little ways northward, listening to the sounds of the crowds around them, the distant honking of “autopia” cars somewhere on their right, wherever the track winds through the sculpted, artificial landscape of make-believe -

Saying nothing

Doing nothing

Simply being together

Hand in hand.

A soft, sweet, miserable perfection to them both, the moment sinking like a welcome stone in Gabriel’s heart.

...Nine years since they had last been here together, just as “friends” - Jack eager to try every ride, to eat every snack (“You promised me a legendary Disneyland churro, Gabe!”), to practically run laps around both Disneyland and California Adventure, the sister theme park to the south of the “main attraction,” while Gabriel was eager to bury his budding feelings in bright colors and loud sounds and fast coasters and sugar snacks.

And, even though it’s been...one helluva near-decade for them -

That dangerous thought -

_Was it worth it?_

\- whispers through his head again.

...It is not unwelcome.

A brightly-steeled glint catches Gabriel’s eye through the shade of his tinted glasses.  He casually glances at the Omnic worker - dressed in bold, poppy colors, wearing a tealed version of the Mickey Mouse logo, their silvery faceplate hidden behind some sort of happy, cheerful “robot” mask.  They push along a janitorial cart, just as over-the-top, sugary colorful, pausing beside a trash can, as, close by, a human worker swirls around in a massive, beautiful gown, a small crowd of children and families ooohing and aaahing over the princess.

_...Disney’s always a little too “quick” to jump to the newest form of cheap labor, huh_ , Gabriel thinks bitterly.  Automatons at the major theme parks of Southern California had been a major issue, right up until the Crisis, when many of them were forced to shut down as the tourists had disappeared almost overnight and the families had focused on fortifying the Valley.  But prior to the Crisis, the major theme park companies had struggled through heavy legal battles, with many service workers banding together to accuse them of replacing “human-necessary jobs” with automated processes and AI.

And even though it _should_ be socially taboo to be hiring Omnics only a year after the Crisis had ended -

Disney and its fellow theme park-managing companies apparently had very few qualms about doing so.

_...But I suppose that we **did** shut down the Bakersfield Central Core...very “early” in the Crisis_ , Gabriel sighs.  He hadn’t been home until this block leave had started, and he’d returned to a Valley similar on the surface to his pre-Crisis world, but just...vaguely uncanny at the edges.  Little touches of surrealism that made him double-take, like watching the vibrant jellyfish in Saint-Saëns’ Aquarium song before realizing they were watching him back, or reading a Poe story before realizing it was reading him as well.  

Neighborhoods that were once a little rough, but still vivid, full of life and vitality - still _almost_ the same, but with shifting, glittering Omnic lettering painted in alleys.

Posters of stylized Omnic faces - either with the words “Yes, we serve” or “Not welcome here” - in the corners of store windows.

A stocker in a bodega corner store, setting new wares on the shelves, their “skin” a silvery sheen.

Masses of darkly-clothed workers, trying to hide the glint of their arms, moving stuff around the Port of Los Angeles, driving the forklifts, operating the cranes to carry the massive steel containers.

Cars without wheels, his own included.  Buildings with holo-projected “billboards” on their sides.  Visiting relatives only to find their houses and apartments _felt_ entirely different, even if they were actually largely the same.  Songs on the radio and streaming sites that he just _doesn’t_ relate to.

…

Well, actually, scratch the last one.  That was nothing new.  Gabriel’s always been a snob about music.

But the rest?

It made him feel...just a little at odds with the place he had always loved as his “home” - like a shirt that was mostly comfortable, but irritatingly tight around his shoulders and neck.  He can’t quite tell if the war affected him or Los Angeles more, can’t quite tell if it lies beneath his skin like bullet fragments too tiny to remove -

Or if it blankets the Valley, like a sea of fallen, smog stars, glittery and ritzy with a history it tries to hide.

_Was it worth it_

_Losing touch with your home_

_For years and years of war?_

_A war that will live in your memory and scars as real and as vivid as a roller coaster?_

Gabriel scowls over the thoughts, almost ready to fight himself when -

Warm, rough, gun-calloused and Lichtenberg-lightning fingers squeeze his hand lovingly.

Gabriel jolts, looking back to his right, where Jack gives him a wry, knowing smirk, before the blonde tilts his head forward, saying playfully, “I remember that _way too well_ , no thanks to you.”

Gabriel blinks once at him, looks forward, his eyes tracing past the crowds and faces to the blocky, white-and-gilded-pastel building in the distance and then -

He _smirks_ , deeply, royally, richly, giving a soft, but heated laugh to Jack, “Oh holy shit -”

“I swear,” Jack groans, as the join the crowds moving along the Parade Route, “I _still_ dream about that -”

“God, that was _absolutely_ **_the worst_** thing we’ve ever done,” Gabriel giggles, the memory of the last time they were on “It’s A Small World” almost making him throw up from phantom pain and traumatic laughter.  They’re still moving eastward, in front of the Storybook Land boats, but Jack just drawls in a mocking, singsong lilt, “‘Oh, you _need_ to do ‘It’s A Small World’ at least _once_ , Jack - you’re not really a soldier until you’ve ridden it once.  C’mon, I _dare you_ , boy scout -’”

“I’m _really_ not proud of that,” Gabriel gasps, as the laughter of the memory of the _Small World ride from hell_ returns to his mind -

“ _We got stuck on that ride for **two hours**_ ,” Jack half-shouts, half-moans, half-laughs along.  Gabriel sputters, managing to hack out, “ _Iiiiiiiiiiit’s a smaaaaaall world aaaaaafter all_ -”

“ _Gabriel Santiago Reyes Solís,_ ” Jack states in that bold, dark warning tone he’ll use when he’s 110% Done With Gabriel’s Shit, “If you sing that goddamn song, I will _leave_ your ass for good and quit Overwatch and go throw myself off a cliff -”

“Oh man,” Gabriel laughs loudly, “ _Anything_ but that!  Survived a whole war with killer robots just for a kid song to drive him over the edge!”

“You know, there’s a common denominator in _both_ of those events, and that’s _you_ ,” Jack teases him, elbowing Gabriel’s ribs lightly, before sighing, “I was like, within a fraction of a fraction of a millimeter of catching a flight out of Los Angeles _that night_ and _never_ speaking to you again.”

“God, listen, I am still _so sorry_ ,” Gabriel wheezes, lifting his left hand to wipe away at a tear from his eye.  Jack just thumps his shoulder against Gabriel’s, snarking in that low thunderstorm voice, “Like _hell_ you were - I remember the videos you sent _everyone_ , and the fact that you made that one picture of me your phone wallpaper for the rest of summer.”

“God, you just looked _hilarious_ , crying on your hands and knees as we left the ride,” Gabriel snorts, remember how he basically _framed_ that picture in his heart - eighteen-year-old Jack Morrison, on his knees, hands in the air, screaming bloody joy to the sun over them as a whole crowd of tourists looked at him like he was insane.

“See, you’re _still_ not sorry for it,” Jack grumbles, bumping into him again.  Gabriel grins mischievously, saying, “Well...it’s pretty funny in hindsight, right?”

“We should’ve let the Omnics destroy Disneyland,” Jack says sardonically, but Gabriel shoots a wide-eyed, horrified expression, teasing him, “But _Disneyland_ , Juan -”

“...Okay, fine, we should’ve let the Omnics destroy _just_ ‘It’s A Small World,’” Jack grins slyly, getting Gabriel to laugh, “Just that one.”

“Only that one,” Jack agrees.  Gabriel shakes his head, sighing contentedly, “Like they wouldn’t just hire the same Omnics to rebuild it afterwards.”

As they’re wandering through the north end of Fantasyland

The _second-worst thought_ occurs to Gabriel.

And, knowing exactly what kind of reaction he’s gonna get from Jack, he asks with deliberate, teasing slowness, “Say…”

“Oh _no_ ,” Jack retorts immediately, as they weave through crowds.  The smirk on Gabriel’s face is bright and slightly crooked as he asks, “...How different would the Crisis have been if we had to fight robots that look like the ‘It’s A Small World’ singing bots?”

Jack is _immediately_ burying his face in his right hand, pushing up his sunglasses, rubbing at his eyes as he groans, “I _knew_ this was coming -”

“I think I would’ve surrendered,” Gabriel admits without a hint of shame, “If they sang, I would’ve just let them have the world.  Fuck it - I mean, it’s a small world to them, after all -”

“ _A veces te odio_ ,” Jack sob-laughs behind his hand, “First the museum yesterday, and now _this_ \- what did I do to deserve this??”

“Don’t act like you didn’t know what you were getting into,” Gabriel chuckles, and, despite his insistence that “sometimes he hates Gabriel,” Jack leans against him even more, his fluffy hair brushing softly against the right side of Gabriel’s neck and jaw.  Gabriel rests his head on Jack’s, rumbling with a grin, “And don’t avoid the question - this is _highly_ important to the future of this relationship.”

“Like it’s even a real question,” Jack mutters, sighing heavily, “I wouldn’t even surrender - I’d just desert if I saw the Small World robots coming for us.  I’d just pick you up and run.”

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Gabriel breathes with reverential excitement, but Jack shifts, pulling his head away from Gabriel’s to scowl-smirk, “Gabriel Reyes, I swear to God, if you _dare_ me to run while carrying you -”

“You don’t know how badly I _need_ to experience this,” Gabriel beams, as bright as the sun overhead, and he barely manages to catch the way Jack’s gaze lingers on his, but his bubbly enthusiasm for the _mere thought_ of Jack goddamn Morrison carrying him piggyback style as they flee from tiny, animatronic children singing “Iiiiiiiiit’s a smaaaaaall world aaaaaaaafter all -” gets him too wound up for anything else.  Gabriel almost _bounces_ on his feet, giggling, “C’mon, Jack, c’mon, let’s do it - we can even head over to ‘It’s A Small World’ for the added effect -”

“If you take me back there, I will throw you into the water,” Jack teases him right back, “And who _knows_ how many kids have peed in there.”

There are no words to describe the immediate squirm-flinch that Gabriel does, even as he mutters, “They _have_ to chlorinate that, right?”

“Make me go back there, and I’ll help you find out,” Jack replies coyly, before he leans in and lightly kisses Gabriel’s lips, pressing his smirk to Gabriel’s gasp.  Under the rising heat and the overhead sun, surrounded by crowds and the shrieks of laughter and indistinct chatter, the kiss is brief, warm and slightly rough, but the

Sweet

Easy

Nothingness

Of it

Leaves Gabriel a little breathless.

This is all he has ever wanted -

Quiet, playful moments that slip, where warmth edges on heat and smiles twist into smirks, where fingers interlace and their laughter hums together.

The Valley is different from what he once knew, years and years ago, and he has no idea if it outgrew him or he outgrew it, but

The man whose hand he holds, whose lips he kisses, whose smile he treasures, whose light teasing banter is all he wants to fight with

Feels a lot more like home these days.

As the moment breaks, and Jack pulls away from this kiss, Gabriel grins lazily, slow and languid, asking coyly, “...Carry me to Big Thunder?”

“...If you sing that stupid song at any point, I’ll drop you,” Jack warns him, smiling back.

Gabriel just chuckles, singing lightly:

“ _Muuuuuuuuy pequeño el mundo eeeeeeesssss_ -”

“ _Reyes, you actual little shit_ -” Jack shouts, but Gabriel just bolts eastward, shouting the song at the top of his lungs -

“ _Muuuuuuuuy pequeño el mundo eeeeeeesssss_ -”

As Jack - despite nine years of playful banter and endless teases, despite nine years of remembering that stupid song -

Chases after him.

\---------

**Soldado: Kings**

Sunday, July 7, 2053: 7:24 p.m. - The backyard of the Reyes household, Los Angeles, California

 

“You’ve got the temperature on this thing way too high!”

Jack watches with mild amusement as Gabriel turns his attention from the barbeque grill to the door of the house on Gabriel’s left.  Jack is sitting in the low but comfortable wrought iron patio furniture on a small wooden deck beneath the shade of a tree - orange, perhaps, but not fruiting in the summer - in the far corner of the Reyes’ backyard.  He’s impressed the rickety, wobbly things can hold his dense frame, sinking deep into plush cushions, rocking himself slow as he sips at his beer.  There’s another chair to his left and a small table between them, but his real focus is the rather impressive barbeque grill about five, six feet in front of him, just on the edge of the main concrete patio.  As if on cue, Eddie Reyes - a near-perfect, if obviously older and slightly shorter mirror to his son - exits the house through the backyard door, hefting a plate of an assortment of meats, shaking his head, muttering in low Spanish that Jack only manages to catch snippets of as he moves towards the grill between the house and the lawn furniture.

“You come into my castle and argue with me, eh, _mijo_?” Eddie says to Gabriel as he approaches the grill, setting the plate down on the side-tray.  Gabriel’s got at least an extra three inches on him and probably near fifty - sixty more pounds on him in pure muscle (and well, whatever “enhancements” SEP had given him), but there’s a little more weight and stance to Eddie’s voice and attitude - an intangible “heft” that comes with age and paternal authority.  Gabriel doesn’t back down, not outright, but Jack does notice how he shifts out of the way just enough for Eddie to wedge himself between his son and the grill.

Swallowing his sip, Jack enjoys the bubbly, bursting flavor, and sighs with a soft, simmering contentment.

It’s rare to say that life is perfect, but -

Well -

Life feels pretty perfect right now.

The Reyes house is nothing particularly unusual for the San Fernando Valley - a short, squat house built in the “bungalow” style that’s so popular in the area (supposedly built in the 1920’s, though Gabriel routinely mentions his skepticism of such a claim - “maybe a single square foot of the patio concrete is still authentic after that bigass earthquake”), the building is deceptively bigger than it looks from the outside.  What gives it charm is absolutely the family that lives inside it - even when Jack had been here nine years ago, the house had all the touches of being warm, welcoming, bright, full of vibrant colors and loud laughs and lively pictures.  It was furnished with small, particular aspects of the Reyes family, things Jack could not always visually see, but instantly knew by their presence - the soft, worn textures of couches and chairs, the constant, cheerful smell of vivid foods somewhere in the house, sounds of happy, boisterous voices from a room over, perhaps a classic rock song playing from some electronic device in the kitchen, or the backyard, or the garage.  It is at once different and yet immediately familiar to him, like one of Gabriel’s wry scowl-smirks made into a physical place.

The backyard is long and narrow, running more parallel to the width of the house than it extends back - about half poured-concrete patio with a bright red overhanging awning covering the barbeque grill where Gabriel and his father are lightly bickering over the cooking, a quarter of stubby grass, and a quarter desert-resilient plants and scrubs and small vegetables, outlined with reddish silted soil and bright, colorful tile steps.  The lawn furniture sits on a small, hand-built desk beneath a large tree in the corner, surrounded by bushes and creeping vines clinging to the fence wrapping around him and up his left side, small, bright flowers fluttering in the faint whisper of a breeze.  

Above them, the sky is still blue, but the western edge is rippling into more gilded tones of sweet yellows and soft pinks and bright oranges, shadowy purples just barely beginning to show through the leaves, more an implied color than something Jack can actually perceive.  The sun isn’t really _setting_ , just beginning to stretch and yawn to itself, the air warm and just comfortably hazy enough to lull Jack into a sense of

Utter

Peace.

_Pretty damn close to perfection_ , Jack decides internally, even as he watches Eddie gesture emphatically, saying proudly, “ _Mira, mijo_ \- we’ll go for a fast, quick sear, we want to keep the steaks rare -”

“You still need to let them _cook_ a little, _Papá_ ,” Gabriel retorts with a dry snort, folding his arms, and Jack admires the way his biceps - exposed from the athletic sleeveless hoodie he’s wearing - flex and curve under the gold-stranded sunlight.

_...I take that back - this IS_ _perfection,_ Jack chuckles, taking another sip from the bottle.  Another figure appears in the glass sliding door, but unlike her husband, Isabella Reyes slinks out rather than strides.  Gabriel may have his father’s build but he mostly has Isabella’s features - high, graceful cheekbones, sharp gazes that somehow look like smoky obsidian backlit by molten gold, deep, rich skintones dusted with flakes of stars, a strong sense of kinesthetics and self-awareness - Jack watches as Isabella expertly moves around the father and son, shaking her head with silent sarcasm as she slips towards the tiled walkway, stealthily avoiding the argument altogether.

As she approaches where he’s lounging, Jack inclines his head to her, and Isabella gives him that same Cheshire Cat smirk that she’d passed onto her son, saying slyly, “Must be nice to watch instead of participate for once, hmm?”

“Sounds like you’ve been talking to Marianne,” Jack jokes as Isabella takes the seat to his left.  Settling into the cushions, she huffs, “Your mother tells me you are quite the grillmaster back home - I am surprised you aren’t helping out here.”

“Yeah, of course my mother would say that,” Jack sighs back, more out of contentment than any sort of exhaustion, but he grins at her, adding, “But Gabriel said he wanted to ‘show me how it’s done,’ and with these comfy chairs and a cold beer calling me over here, who was I to argue?”

“...A wise decision,” Isabella chuckles, lifting her own beer bottle to her lips.  She takes a long drink, but her assessing gaze drifts - over her family, her garden, the flowers on the trellises against the fence.  As she lowers it, she releases a comfortable sigh, saying coyly, “Interfering with a Reyes and their food is a poor choice.”

“Oh yeah, I learned that a long time ago,” Jack rumbles, laughing lowly.  Isabella laughs along with him, before sighing happily, “Ah, I’m glad you’re back, _mijo_.  It has been far too long.  Did you enjoy Disneyland today?”

“Probably far more than a grown supersoldier should,” Jack grins, but Isabella just shrugs - a Reyes signature move - saying confidently, “Disneyland is fun for everyone.”  They both take another drink, but she laughs lightly when she lowers hers, “And I saw that you enjoyed the museum yesterday!”

“Oh _god_ ,” Jack groans, rubbing at an eye.  Across the yard, Gabriel and Eddie have somehow agreed to put the sausages on instead, still talking loudly about how rare they should “keep” the steaks.  The Indiana native mutters, “He sent you that picture, huh?”

“Actually, it was someone else,” Isabella grins, pulling her phone out of her pant pocket.  Jack looks at her suspiciously as she swipes to her messenger, opening up the last chat and holding the phone up to him as -

“...I should have known,” Jack retorts with dry humor as he reads [[Marianne.Morrison] has sent a photo.] on the screen, followed by a picture of his shocked-horrified face from the museum yesterday.  He shakes his head with feigned disappointment, muttering, “Glad to know literally everyone and their mother messages mine.”

Isabella laughs loudly - her voice high and clear like the ringing of bells - but she manages to say through the rippling giggles, “You should’ve seen Gabrielito’s face when we saw it last week!”

“ _Please_ tell me you got a picture,” Jack asks, only partially joking and almost entirely genuinely pleading.  Isabella waggles her index finger at him, plopping her phone in her lap as she teases him, “Now, now - if I had, don’t you think I would’ve sent it to you last week?”

“...Yeah, that’s a good point,” Jack admits, before holding out his beer bottle to her, offering, “Thanks for lookin’ out, Isabella.”

“You keep my son alive, you get whatever embarrassing photos of him your heart desires, _mijo_ ,” Isabella smirks, clinking the neck of her beer bottle against his.  They both drink to that exchange, with Jack heaving as he finishes the drink, “Don’t worry - I’ll keep him alive even without the reward.”

“How selfless of you,” Isabella jokes right back, but as her gaze lingers on her son, who is now pointing dramatically at the sausages as her husband waves tongs in his face, her eyes grow slightly distant.  There’s the rustling of the leaves above them as a gentle breeze tousles his hair, caresses his skin, and Jack glances at her as she murmurs quietly:

“...This is the happiest I’ve seen him in a long time.  Even since his block leave started two weeks ago.”

Jack doesn’t say anything.

He just listens.

“...When his brother left, Gabriel started getting so…” Isabella begins to say, but stops herself, inhaling steeply, the weight of tense years heavy on her shoulders.  She shakes her head slightly, murmuring, “Eddie’s brother, Raúl, did so much for him, but he wasn’t...he never seemed to relax.  ‘I’m focusing on getting into the Academy, Mamá,’ he would say.  He was so strict on himself.”

Jack takes another long sip, remembering how stiff Gabriel could be that first year of West Point, how hard he was - more on himself than anyone else - how dedicated he was, how empowered.

Jack had been drawn to him like a magnet,

Admiring and respecting and reflecting his brilliance like water beneath the sun.

“...When you came here - I cannot believe it was nine years ago -” Isabella says, shaking her head again, but this time with a smile of sheer relieved joy, “I could see it then - how happy he was, how excited he was.  He almost never brought friends home in high school.  But when I met you, I could see.  I could tell.”

“...He had the same impact on me, ma’am,” Jack replies gently, quietly happy.  Isabella looks at him calmly, but with obvious interest on her face.  Jack smiles back, adding with a light chuckle, “Gabriel is my hero.  He inspired me then, and he inspires me now.”

Isabella raises a skeptical eyebrow, flicking her disbelieving gaze back towards the grill, where Gabriel is carefully placing steaks on the iron girdle, whole face scrunched up in intense concentration, Eddie watching him with obvious suspicion.  Jack stares for a moment, before adding with a knowing grin, “Like I said, utterly inspirational.”

Isabella laughs at that, shaking her head as she takes another sip.  When she lowers the bottle, she says slowly, “...That soldier program scared me, but when he said you were going...I felt a little easier.  ‘Ah,’ I thought, ‘They’ll be together.  They can help each other.  They’ll take care of each other.’”

“...Gabriel is the one who motivated me to really persevere in the program,” Jack says, his tone still low, contemplative but content.  Isabella listens as he murmurs warmly, “Would’ve given up a lot if it weren’t for him, but he...he always saw the best in me, even when I had a hard time seeing it.”

“He’s very good like that,” Isabella laughs appreciatively, “He reads people very well, but sometimes he doesn’t know what to do with himself even if he knows them.”  Jack smirks at that, taking another sip.  They sit for a moment, watching Gabriel and Eddie poke and prod at the steaks.  Behind them, the sliding glass door opens, and a young woman - Maria - steps through.  Opposite of Gabriel, she carries Isabella’s tall, lean frame but more of Eddie’s rounder, softer facial features, her light brown hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, dark eyes blinking at the grill in surprise until -

“You started without me?”

Gabriel and Eddie both look up at her in shock, like two kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Isabella leans over towards Jack, and he shifts in closer to her as she whispers conspiratorially, “Look, this will be good -” gesturing with her bottle towards the door as -

“...Didn’t you have a longer shift?” Gabriel asks hesitantly as Eddie grins sheepishly, “ _Mija_ , we thought you were supposed to be here later!”

“...I said seven-thirty, right?” Maria asks, but as her eyes drift to the steaks, she scowls, saying, “ _What_ are you doing to those?”

“...Cooking them?” Gabriel offers unhelpfully, but Maria strides up to him - she barely passes his shoulder in height, but her fierce and bold attitude practically bowls him over as she moves him out of the way, muttering in hoarse, tart tones, “Starting the sear without the actual _chef_ present - you’re going to _ruin_ these, Gabi!”

“Look, I had this under control -” Gabriel starts to protest, but Maria just waves him off, saying, “Yeah, yeah, go grab yourself a drink and relax, bro.  It’s ‘your vacation’ or something, right?  The Strike-Commander of Overwatch should chill sometimes.”  

Said Strike-Commander of Overwatch - highest military authority figure in history, savior of humanity, destroyer of the apocalypse - stares balefully at his younger sister, and then at the steaks, and then tilts a sad, exaggerated, wide-eyed pout towards Jack and his mother.  Jack gives him a sympathetic, crooked half-smile as Isabella just rolls another Reyes shrug at him, which in turns gets his expression to twist into a playful scowl-smirk, before he heads back into the house.

“...I guess it doesn’t matter how many battles you fight,” Jack says sagely, lifting his bottle to his lips, adding wryly, “The battle over the grill is the one even heroes can lose.”

Isabella laughs brightly at that as Jack takes a sip, and she says cheerfully, “No one ever defeats Maria for the grill!”  They lapse back into comfortable, relaxed silence as Maria begins to tell her father about her shift at the restaurant, when Isabella finally says in a quietly happy near-whisper:

“...You were all he talked about during the war.”

Jack stills.

Feels the breeze murmur across his skin

Feels the gilded sunlight - steeping into deeper, richer hues - play with his hair

Feels his heart squeeze with the bitter and bittersweet joy of his love for his commander, his soldier, his best friend, his partner -

For this family he has been given a small moment of leave and reprieve with

For this home he has been welcomed into without hesitation or concern.

“...We weren’t allowed to say much,” Jack says, his face still towards the grill, but his eyes are a year, two years, five years back, watching things Jack could not always visually see, but instantly knew by their presence - the sound of Bastion Gatling gunfire, the clattering sound their bullets made on the photon shield as they instantly vaporized, the sputtering fire of a friendly turret dying, the bang of a sniper rifle, the blast of a shotgun -

The heat of a supercharger-turned-rifle in his hands -

The feeling of thousands of tiny nanobots pricking across his skin as the glow of a biotic field fills the world -

“...I know,” Isabella says gently, tenderly, her voice pulling him back.  Jack glances at her as she gives him that crooked, sly grin her son inherited from her, teasing him with just enough humor as she says, “It was strange - he was so focused, like his last year of high school or his first year at the Academy, but it was different.  I could tell - didn’t even have to be there, but I could tell.  It was a good sort of focused.  He was strong.  He didn’t lose his spark like in the past.”

And then Isabella laughs, “Would even send me some of his stupid emojis when he was being a real punk about it.”

“Oh my god,” Jack croaks, half-coughing, half-laughing as Isabella lifts her phone from her lap, tapping through to some sort of chat archive.  She holds it up to him, and Jack reads:

[Gabriel.Reyes]: guess who just crushed Anubis :^)

[...]

[Isabella.Reyes]: well

[Isabella.Reyes]: if we’re being literal

[Isabella.Reyes]: I’m putting a twenty on Reinhardt

[Gabriel.Reyes]: oh wow

[Gabriel.Reyes]: RIP mi corazón

[Isabella.Reyes]: wait what happened to Jack now?? /s

[Gabriel.Reyes]: mierda mama

[Gabriel.Reyes]: you don’t need to go THIS hard

[Isabella.Reyes]: :^)

[Isabella.Reyes]: good job with Anubis

[Gabriel.Reyes]: thank you, mama

[Isabella.Reyes]: I guess you can’t say more, huh?

[Gabriel.Reyes]: no

[Gabriel.Reyes]: lo siento

[Isabella.Reyes]: it’s fine. As long as you are safe

[Isabella.Reyes]: te amo, mijo

[Gabriel.Reyes]: y tú, mama

\---

 

Jack wheezes, struggling to catch his breath as he manages to hack out, “Holy hell, Isabella, you’re next level -”

“Who do you think taught him everything he knows?” Isabella snaps back, flicking the screen back off and dropping her phone in her lap.  She leans back in her chair, looking confidently and calmly smug, chuckling, “I wouldn’t be a good mother if I couldn’t take my son’s victories over Artificial Gods in humble stride.”

“We have different definitions of ‘humble,’ apparently,” Jack says, giving one last cough to clear the laughter from his lungs.  He wipes at a trickling tear in the corner of his eye, sighing happily as he lifts the bottle to his lips, “God, that might be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s because you weren’t there for his reaction to that kiss picture last week,” Isabella corrects him, and Jack starts to choke on his laughter and the beer, almost dying of both the incredible lightness of joy in his heart and the fact that fizzy alcohol is burning up his throat, tongue, and nose.

“ _Mierda_ -” Jack sputters, leaning forward as he hacks and wheezes and spits, Isabella’s high, cheerful laughter ringing out next to him.  He feels her whap a hand on his back, helping him through the last few coughs as he half-jokes, half-breathes, “Warn me the next time you’re gonna spit fire, holy shit -”

“Sorry, _mijo_ , but you can’t put a warning on divine inspiration,” Isabella retorts with a wicked, playful gleam in her eyes, and Jack doubles over on himself, almost sobbing, “Isabella, _para por favor_ , I’m dying -”

“Well, _shit_ , Gabriel will never forgive me if I do that,” Isabella jokes, casually taking a sip from her bottle.  Jack slumps himself back in the cushions, wiping more tears away as he sighs heavily, “God damn, I’m never going to doubt you on anything ever again.”

“When you come at the queen, you better not miss,” Isabella taunts him, and Jack just inhale-exhales as he raises his bottle to her, saying hoarsely, “And long may she reign.”

Isabella smirks at that, clinking her bottle against his - they both drink to the queen who reigns over kings and commanders, settling back into their cushions, watching as Gabriel reappears behind the sliding glass door, a plate of skewers and kabobs in one hand, a beer bottle in the other.  Jack and Isabella watch with high amusement as the Strike-Commander - king of Jack’s heart, light of Jack’s soul, radiance of Jack’s sunshine - struggles to open the door with his elbow.

“...I can’t believe I’ve been in love with him for seven years,” Jack says with loving disbelief as Gabriel gives up and bangs on the glass with the knuckles of the hand gripping the beer bottle instead, the sound catching Eddie and Maria’s attention.  

“Just set the bottle down, _pinche idiota_ ,” Maria yells at him through the glass, but Gabriel just manages to do the most inelegant, sarcastic shrug, making a fake-ugly face at her.  Eddie sighs, shaking his head as he mutters loudly, “ _Mijos, mijos, por favor_ -”

“...So when is the wedding?” Isabella asks Jack as casually as she can manage as Eddie takes three wide steps to the door, grabbing the handle -

“What a coincidence - my mom was asking me _the exact same question_ last week,” Jack retorts in mock surprise as the father slides the door open for his son, who grins at him, “ _Gracias, Papá._ ”  

“Ah yes,” Isabelle chuckles, “I’m glad Marianne is putting our two-front approach into action.”  Jack just shakes his head, recognizing that he’s getting outplayed again, watching as Gabriel shuffles to the grill, setting the plate of kabobs down as he asks, “Those steaks done yet, Iron Chef?”

“Yeah, yeah, just put them in the kitchen and let them sit for a minute,” Maria says, starting to place the kabobs and skewers on the grill.  Gabriel takes a swig from his bottle, lifting the plate of steaks as he chuckles, “Sure thing, Gordon.”

“God, between the emojis and the roasting skills and now the pro strats,” Jack says with light awe and gentle laughter, “You really _did_ teach Gabriel everything.”

“Never doubt what I say, _mijo_ ,” Isabella wisecracks, smirking at him as he glances at her.  She grins, “Capturing the king may be the objective of chess, but it is the queen that holds all the power.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Jack jokes back, giving her a quick salute.  They watch Gabriel turn with the plate in one hand and his bottle in the other, slipping back into the house with surprising gracefulness.  It isn’t silence that falls between them, not truly, because they can hear Eddie and Maria chatter in easy, languid tones, their words only partially distinct.

But Jack feels something slightly weighted - the strongest sigh, the everlong longing - linger on his shoulders, before he sits back in the chair, tensely relaxing into the cushions.  He takes a sip from his bottle, letting the fizz bubble and burn a little inside him, before he finally says:

“...I don’t know.”

He can _feel_ Isabella’s observant, contemplative eyes on him, but Jack just looks forward.  His eyes don’t see this backyard, nor the sunset, nor the family he has been welcomed into.

His mind sees the warehouses of Bastions and Spiders, awaiting decommissioning, sees the OR-14s being herded into the Ibadan Omnium again, sees long shadows beneath Torbjörn’s eyes as they i.d. and count the “soldier” models -

Before the engineer disconnects their computing cores.

His mind sees the list of criminal networks, the ones that have sprung up in the power vacuums of the world, where government oversight and laws have crumbled with the ashes of the old, Pre-Crisis world, sees the anarchy gangs and arms dealers and yazuka clans ruling with their own, deadly order, sees how Ana looks as she rattles off new numbers and statistics and death tolls to them.

His mind sees the overburdened hospitals the world over, full of veterans and shattered families and young orphans, missing an arm or a leg or an eye, struggling with the smoke coating the insides of their lungs and the fusion radiation in their blood, sees how many need more than what Overwatch in its present state can offer them, how they need full-time staffing and supplies and resources.

His mind sees the charred forests around the Great Lakes, the melting glaciers in Antarctica, the broken cliffs of Gibraltar, the damaged pyramids of the Nile and the Yucatan, the cities cracked open and left devastated by war and the phantom of that pale white horse.

He sees Gabriel’s face, in the half-shadows of their bedroom at Watchpoint: Montreal, how tired and drained he looks -

But the smile he always gives Jack is soft, as sweet as the sunrise, as gilded as the sunset, steeped in the shades of Gabriel’s radiant soul and -

Jack’s heart twists in bitter and bittersweet love over the mere image of it in his mind.

“...I don’t know,” Jack says again, his voice lost and distant in the present world Overwatch must struggle to rebuild, to make better.  He repeats it a third time, “I don’t know, Isabella.  I want nothing - _nothing_ \- more than to do right by him, but we...Overwatch has _so much_ to do, I have no idea when we’ll find time.”

Isabella scoffs next to him, muttering sourly, “ _Pinche Overwatch_ \- Adawe needs to let you two rest more!  I cannot believe this is your first block leave in five years!  That’s just…”

Her words fizzle out into raw anger, and Jack glances at her, watching her shake her head with disgust and irritation as she sips from her beer.  When she lowers the bottle, she murmurs with quiet fury, “They ask too much of him.  Of you.  Of all of you.  You saved the world - you should never have to work another day in your lives!”

Jack chuckles dryly, “Ah well, it’s not quite that easy for us, I guess.  We’re all…”

He sighs, inhaling deeply, exhaling out the words, “We’re all committed now.  I guess...now that we know what we _can_ accomplish, we all want to try and push ourselves.  Do more.  Be better.”

Jack’s eyes drift back to the house, where he sees Gabriel reappear behind the glass door.  Jack smiles warmly, “I guess the short version is simply that I don’t know when we’ll be able to plan a wedding.  We need to discuss it in more detail first - and talk about a house too.”

And, though he doesn’t say it aloud -

Jack knows

Deep down inside

Neither of them are particularly...enamored with the idea of planning a wedding right now.

They both know marriage will happen one way or another, but whether it occurs to cheering guests and the pop of champagne bottles

Or in the quiet dawn of the softest sunrise, fingers intertwined in a moment that slips away to the dreams of time

( _For the simple and sweet and mundane is so rare for them these days_ )

That, they don’t know.

But as long as they are together -

As Gabriel slides the door open, Isabella sighs almost wistfully, “I suppose that is just like you two.”

Jack glances at her, meeting her eyes - the dark, smoky gold looks serenely serious for a moment, but then she smiles that wry smirk that is so similar to her son’s, laughing lightly, “You never want the fanfare and the spotlight, even if it is what you deserve.  You’re perfectly content with the simple things in life.”

Isabella then glances over her backyard, her home, her family - the warm, smoky scent of sizzling kabobs and peppers and onions filling the slow sunset with the rich flavors of the intangible wealth of royalty.  She still smiles warmly, saying gently, “...Although I suppose...I can understand that sentiment.”

But then she flicks her gaze back to him, smirking knowingly as she chuckles, “But I _would_ prefer to see my son in his dress blues at the altar, John Morrison.  And I will use everything in my power to get that.”

“...I’m not sure if I’ve made a powerful ally or a dangerous enemy today,” Jack grins, lifting his bottle to take another sip.  Isabella continues to smirk, chuckling, “ _¿Por qué no los dos?_ ”

“ _Prefiero el primero_ ,” Jack retorts, which gets Isabella to laugh lightly.  They watch as Gabriel peeks over his father and sister’s shoulders at the kabobs, before Maria turns towards the pair of them in the patio chairs, saying, “Dinner’s pretty much done.”

“ _Bueno, mijo_ , _vamos a comer_ ,” Isabella says, rising with easy movements from her seat.  Jack follows, stretching a little, enjoying the slight, lingering sting of Gabriel’s scratches on his back.  He ambles after her, stepping along the terra cotta tile path, as Maria leads the procession back into the house, hoisting the kabobs platter.  Eddie goes second, but Gabriel waits a moment, letting Isabella pass him -

“ _Estoy orgullosa de ti, mijo_ (tn: I’m proud of you, my son),” Isabella murmurs to him, patting his shoulder lightly as she goes.  Gabriel looks a little bewildered, but calls out, “ _Gracias, Mamá…_ ” but the slight inflection on the last word shows his confusion.

“She keeps saying that to me,” Gabriel mutters as Jack joins him.  The son of the queen shakes his head, adding quietly, “I don’t really know what I did for her to keep complimenting me, but I ain’t gonna complain.”

“Hmm, she has a lot of reasons to be proud of you,” Jack hums coyly, chuckling, “As do I.”  The skeptical, disbelieving squint that Gabriel gives him completely reveals how he _totally_ doesn’t buy Jack’s words.  Jack just grins back at him with an amused smirk, before leaning over and giving him a bright kiss on his cheek, murmuring slyly, “ _Estoy orgulloso de ti, mi rey_ -”

“Oh _god_ , not you too,” Gabriel grumbles, but his radiant smile completely reveals how he _totally_ doesn’t mean it, as does the arm that he slings around Jack’s waist, pulling him a little closer.  Gabriel scowl-smirks, that crooked, wry, absolutely _charming_ grin that he inherited from the queen of the castle, laughing, “Alright, smartass, let’s go see how my steaks taste -”

“ _Your_ steaks?” Jack asks back jokingly, “Funny, I thought I watched Maria do all the grilling.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Gabriel retorts as they head into the house, “I _started_ them, okay?  And I set the temperature.  That’s 90% of grilling right there.”

“The Art of a Good Steak,” Jack intones, “By Michelin-star chef Gabriel Reyes.  Never overcook your steaks again.”

“Damn right,” Gabriel laughs loudly, as they follow the vibrant scenes and excited voices to the dining room, passing through the bright, brilliant kitchen, all warm lighting and bold paint.  Jack murmurs with a playful tease, “Such a _talented_ boyfriend I have - Strike-Commander, world hero, military badass, basically a professional chef.”

“It’s so difficult to keep all this raw talent contained, I know,” Gabriel smirks and Jack -

He laughs so brightly at that.

This moment

This whole day

Might just be

Perfect

In the smallest, simplest, sweetest and bittersweetest ways.


End file.
